Honour
by wildechilde17
Summary: It's been some weeks since the Battle of Hogwarts and the Minister has an offer for Neville. But Neville is only just working out who he is and how he fits in this brave new world. Luna and Neville need some time to heal just like the wizarding world at large. But how do you heal and fall in love at the same time? Pretty much a sequel to Toothbrush. Review and I am in your debt.
1. Prologue

"But," said Neville blankly, "I don't have NEWT's level transfiguration." He realised as he said it that it seemed the most fatuous of reasons in the midst of the reconstruction of the Ministry if not the whole of wizarding Britain. His suit didn't fit quite right and it was the kind of material only a grandmother can find, the itchiest possible.

"Perhaps not Mr Longbottom but we are willing to wave some requirements given the current situation." Kingsley Shacklebot's calm manner did nothing to settle Neville's nerves.

This morning he'd wondered as he fussed with the itchy suit in the mirror if his father had ever felt this uneasy in his own skin and then had decided that his father was probably nothing like the scarred, green thumbed, uncomfortable looking young man in the brown suit that stared back at him, at least before Neville had been able to know him.

He knew he was hunching in the way that Gran, despite her more recent pride, still found so irritating. He also knew that he was taking far too long to answer the Ministers offer. Licking his bottom lip he looked up, "And Harry and Ron, they're going to do this as well?"

"Yes, I've spoken to them both as well as a few others you may know, Mr Goldstein and Miss Bones."

"Not Hermione?" he asked confused.

"Miss Granger, I believe is returning to Hogwarts to complete her final year."

"Oh Yeah, right, that sounds like Hermione," he muttered.

"I won't require a definite commitment for a few days Mr Longbottom. I can see this request has caught you off guard. Perhaps you could use the time to discuss it with your Grandmother, friends?" Shacklebot rose as he spoke offering his hand. "I'll expect your owl." Neville took his hand grateful that the meeting was over.

"I'll, yeah; I'll be in touch. Thank you Minister. It's an Honour."

"You have proven you have the ability to be an excellent Auror Mr Longbottom, consider it."

_For those who wish to have a sound track for this fic please see the below as a guide. All reviews are delighted in even if they only point out typos. _

**Chapters and Song listings for Honour**

_**Prologue**_ Warriors with Wild Hearts by Caitlin Park

_**Chapter One **_Warriors with Wild Hearts by Caitlin Park

_**Chapter Two**_ There She Goes by the La's

_**Chapter Three**_ The parting glass by Ed Sheeran

_**Chapter Four**_ Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel

_**Chapter Five**_The feeding line by Boy & Bear

_**Chapter Six**_Timshel by Mumford & Sons

_**Chapter Seven**_Toss the feather by The Corrs

_**Chapter Eight**_The Kissing Song by Dawn Landes

_**Chapter Nine**_Great Expectations by Elbow

_**Chapter Ten**_Love your way by Powderfinger

_**Chapter Eleven**_The Ship Song by Amanda Palmer

_**Chapter Twelve**_Safe and Sound by the Electric Presidents

_**Chapter Thirteen**_The world without by A fine frenzy

_**Chapter Fourteen**_Breathe by Alexi Murdoch

_**Chapter Fifteen**_I won't give in by Neil Finn

_**Chapter Sixteen**_Kiss me by Ed Sheeran

_**Chapter Seventeen**_Cigarette By Ben Folds Five

_**Chapter Eighteen**_Short Fuse by The Black Lips

_**Chapter Nineteen**_Rise by The Frames

_**Chapter Twenty**_The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys

_**Chapter Twenty One**_Boats and Birds by Gregory and the Hawk

_**Chapter Twenty Two**_Once around the Block by Badly Drawn Boy

_**Chapter Twenty Three**_ Dans ma Rue by Zaz

_**Chapter Twenty Four**_You were a Kindness by The National

_**Chapter Twenty Five**_ An Olive Grove facing the Sea by Snow Patrol

_**Chapter Twenty Six**_ Beautiful by Trading Yesterday

_**Chapter Twenty Seven**_ Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros

_**Chapter Twenty Eight**_This is why we fight by The Decemberists

_**Chapter Twenty Nine**_Come here Boy by Imogen Heap

_**Chapter Thirty**_Sit back down by Annemarie Quinn

_**Chapter Thirty One**_Sinnerman by Nina Simmone

_**Chapter Thirty Two**_Like Lavender by Horse Feathers

_**Chapter Thirty Three**_You are the moon by The Hush Sound

_**Chapter Thirty Four**_This is how it's meant to be by Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo

_**Chapter Thirty Five **_For you I will (Confidence) by Teddy Geiger

_**Chapter Thirty Six**_Into Temptation by Crowded House

_**Chapter Thirty Seven**_Into Temptation by Crowded House


	2. Well done Neville

"Yes, I thought it would be something like that," said Luna as she charmed her room a happy shade of orange.

"Wha? Why?" his frustration and incomprehension was making his Yorkshire glottal stop more prominent. He hadn't stopped to change the suit. It was beginning to bug him.

"Well," she said standing back to appreciate the effect, "the Auror Department and the Ministry are in ruins, Harry, Ron, You," she added pointedly "have proven your ability in defence against the dark arts and against some of the darkest mages of all time."

"Luna, I only said wha' I said to Voldemor' 'cause I thought Harry was dead. I though' we'd all be dead soon."

"You've said that. I'm just not sure you see yourself clearly." She peered at him as though he was creature to be studied. He wrenched at the tie that wouldn't seemed to loosen and felt the hot prickles of frustration run up the back of his neck. Luna's imperturbability was beginning to bug him too.

"I know who I am," he warned.

"Oh yes?" she asked evenly as she played with her butter beer cork necklace. "Why did we reform Dumbledore's Army? Why did you continue fighting after Ginny had to flee?" She didn't mention her own kidnapping; she rarely did in the daylight.

"Somebody had to," he yelled, for one tiny moment Luna's eyes grew bigger with shock.

"Well then, there are still dark wizards Neville and someone has to bring them to justice."

"Yeah, Harry, Ron…"

"And Neville," she sang as she adjusted the hue of the room wordlessly.

"I…" trying to swallow against the dryness in his mouth was a losing battle. Each time he tried to come at the Minister's request his stomach dropped into his shoes again.

"You want to do these things. You can do these things. You do do these things when you don't think about them," she said in hushed tones stepping into his personal space. Despite the weeks of being something more than friends, the young woman with the dirty blonde hair being so very close still made him apprehensive. He felt so unsure about what he was allowed to do with her. He knew what others in his position did but none of it seemed quite right or natural when you applied it to Luna and very definitely when you applied it to Neville.

"I though' I was done," he quietly begged her to remember what she had promised him after the battle.

"Yes, are you sure you want to be? I think you want permission to be as brave and good as I have always known you to be."

"I don' feel brave."

"No I don't suppose you do. You still will be though." She reached up and for a second he imagined she was about to slap him for his attitude. Instead, in a far more Luna like way she easily undid the tie with her nimble fingers. From on tip toe she smiled at him, a small warm smile that always calmed him. "Well done Neville."

"Well done Neville," he sighed and pulled her into an embrace, resting his chin on her head as he added, "I think I liked the first colour better."

"Mm, I did too, it's called honour bound."


	3. Dirigible Plum

"I wish you could have seen it before. I can try but it will never be quite the same. It may be better, but you'll never have seen the way it was to begin with." The way she danced inside all the things that would have made him incomprehensibly sad filled him with awe. She returned the room to the orange 'honour bound' with a flick of her lily handled wand.

"I'm sure it will be beautiful," he said honestly.

"Oh yes, but I had painted everyone on my ceiling and now we are all so changed."

"You painted who?"

"Ginny, Harry, Ron, Hermione and you," she answered simply as though the answer had been implicit in the 'everyone'.

"You painted me on your ceiling?"

"I painted all my friends. I like being able to see you even when I am home with Daddy."

"That's…" what exactly was it, odd, insane, romantic, sweet, wonderful. "Beautiful," he finished lamely unable to find one word to encapsulate how very Luna the idea of painting your friends to always look upon you was. He felt heat rise in his cheeks as it occurred to him that she had thought enough of him to paint him too. Luna, ever sweet, did not mention or perhaps notice the blush as she gazed at the bedroom ceiling mapping out a new mural. Neville removed the despicable jacket, folding it; he sat upon the white iron bed in the centre of the room. "I should go, I guess, tell Gran about the Ministry. Let you get on with things here."

"You can stay. It's always nice having you here," she said. "You know I think you are the very first boy I've had in my bedroom, well Harry said he'd seen my room when they came to ask about the Hallows but I don't suppose that counts." She joined him on the bed it creaking with the movement. "And I am almost certain that isn't what people mean when they say having a boy in your bedroom."

Luna babbled on, in anyone else Neville would have assumed it was nerves that kept her talking but Luna never seemed nervous only curious. However her babbling was only making Neville more aware of his own nerves. He'd apparated to the Lovegood's rebuilt tower without thinking because the only person he really wanted to discuss the Minister's offer with was the odd little witch who might very well explain his anxiety with reference to a hitherto unknown invisible creature. But with Luna, so pretty in her green overalls, happily chatting away beside him it was only now occurring to him that being here might not be considered altogether appropriate.

"Neville, you are blushing again."

"Well you had to go and say the stuff about me being a boy in your bedroom."

"And that came as a shock?" she asked smiling

"Well, yeah. It did a bit."

"Which bit, you being a boy or this being my bedroom?" she asked curious and close enough to kiss. The room lurched, throwing Neville back against the bed.

"Neville," Luna exclaimed, "Daddy's got the new presses up and running!"

"Oh thank Merlin," he responded glad that Luna was happy but more so that he needn't try and explain why sharing the room of requirement with forty or so members of Dumbledore's Army was not the same thing as being found in the bedroom of the girl you'd quite like to see naked. And Luna always made him explain those things despite the fact that she was amazingly clever she seemed to enjoy him bumbling over the pragmatics.

"He's been quite sad since he came home, there has been an awful lot to be sad about after all but I think perhaps Azkaban made him think about Mummy."

"Oh Luna, that's terrible," he said.

"Yes, but now he has the press working. He can get back to writing and he has me back again. I just know he'll start to feel better soon." She tugged him towards the spiral stairs past a repaired picture of a much younger Luna with her mother.

Down the stairs they went, Luna's hand gripping the cuff of his shirt tightly and Neville trying vainly not to trip. On the second floor they found the presses and Mr Lovegood. The wizard looked stale and drained despite the brightness of his robes and the look of utter absorption in the noisy printing press.

"Daddy," cried Luna. "It's working!"

"Yes, yes, yes," he responded distractedly pushing back his candyfloss hair as he raised his head from the metal geared and papered monstrosity that shook the residence. "Hmm, I didn't see you come in Mr Longbottom."

"Neville," Neville answered automatically. "Sorry, I had to talk to Luna."

"Yes Luna of course, Luna, my love, have you offered your friend some gurdyroot tea?" He waved at the air like the words needed to be gathered into his head before he could say them.

"No Daddy, Neville is very polite but I don't think he enjoys the taste of gurdyroot despite it benefits."

"Really?" said Xenophillius staring at Neville, "how odd."

"The press looks good Mr Lovegood, does this mean The Quibbler will be back in action soon?" Neville asked hoping the cross eyed wizard might stop watching him so closely.

"Yes, yes, should be, should be," he replied. Mr Lovegood just kept staring. Neville wished that he was as short as he had been when he still feared he was a squib so that he might hide behind Luna. There was a pause and then another pause and that pause lasted longer than the first. Luna finally filled it.

"Neville is very good with plants; I thought he might be able to help with the dirigible plum." She quickly gave his had reassuring squeeze.

"What? Ah yeah plums, sure I can help," Neville replied dragging his gaze from the vaguely hypnotic stare of Luna's father.

"Oh good," Luna said brightly "I don't suppose Death Eaters read signs about staying off the dirigible plums."

"I don't think they read much at all," he said. "I should go though, you know, Gran's probably wondering where I am. I'll probably get the 'hero or no hero, punctuality and consideration for others' speech."

"Yes, yes, better be going Mr Longbottom. I'm sure we'll see you soon, things to do." Xenophillius despite his distracted ways seemed quite content to have Neville out of the house as soon as possible.

"Come Neville I'll walk you to the door," said Luna quietly.

When they reached the iron studded front door Neville turned to Luna, "Thank you for helping, before, when I got here."

"Daddy used to say that there are no problems that can't be solved by honest conversation and an open mind." Luna smiled her warm smile.

"I'm so glad you are my friend Luna Lovegood."

"I rather thought we were more than that Neville," she replied before raising herself up on tip toes to kiss him lightly on the lips.

"'Yeah, me too, but you're still my friend too," he answered shyly.

"Always."

"I'll see you tomorrow right? The Brown's Memorial service for Lavender."

"Yes I'll be there. It's all so sad," she said quietly

"It feels like the services and funerals never stop," he echoed.

"Oh no Neville, we fought so they will stop, remember that."

"Yeah, alright," he shrugged.

"And it's not like we won't ever see them again."

"Luna, you're amazing."

"I'm glad you think so, but your grandmother won't be as certain if you are late again," she said seriously pushing him softly towards the open door.


	4. The parting glass

Seamus's sandy hair had darkened over the years Neville had known him but as he stood on the wooden platform with the mid-afternoon sunlight catching his tear streaked cheeks Neville couldn't help but see two Irish wizards: the firebug freckled faced kid and the broader shouldered darker haired man reciting a poem or maybe a song before them.

"Of all the money e'er I had,  
>I spent it in good company.<br>And all the harm I've ever done,  
>Alas! it was to none but me.<br>And all I've done for want of wit  
>To mem'ry now I can't recall<br>So fill to me the parting glass  
>Good night and joy be with you all.<p>

Oh, all the comrades e'er I had,  
>They're sorry for my going away,<br>And all the sweethearts e'er I had,  
>They'd wish me one more day to stay,<br>But since it falls unto my lot,  
>That I should rise and you should not,<br>I gently rise and softly call,  
>Good night and joy be with you all<p>

A man may drink and not be drunk

A man may fight and not be slain

A man may court a pretty girl

And perhaps be welcomed back again

But since it has ought to be

By a time to rise and a time to fall

So fill to me the parting glass  
>Good night and joy be with you all."<p>

The words were happy and in keeping with his room-mates philosophy on life but the hollowness of Seamus's voice made Neville's skin goose bump. Seamus finished and stepped off the platform without another word or a familiar cheeky smile. He stumbled a bit under estimating the distance to the grass below but made his way back to his seat several rows behind the Brown family as though he hadn't even noticed. Dean stood up to allow Seamus back into his seat beside some of the younger Gryffindor girls. Dean's expression had not shifted from the one of concern he had entered with earlier in the afternoon. Ginny sitting behind Seamus with Harry, Ron and Hermione gently placed her hand on Seamus's shoulder, leaning forward to whisper something soothing. If Seamus heard Neville couldn't tell.

Dragging his line of sight back to the stage he suddenly noticed that Robert Brown, Lavender's older brother, was talking. He was saying something about not wishing to leave the lavender covered platform, not wanting to stop talking about his baby sister because then truly she would be gone. There was a strangled sob from the front row where Mrs. Brown who had the same golden brown curls as her daughter huddled into her husband's chest. Robert Brown's words about a Lavender that he had known but whom Neville felt he'd only really caught glimpses of in their seven years at Hogwarts started to blend into all the other eulogies.

It wasn't getting easier these memorials, funerals and ceremonies. The numbness he was hoping for wasn't embracing him, perhaps it had been the pain potion he was taking at the time of Dumbledore's funeral that had softened the grief or maybe it was that he felt so guilty this time but this time everything felt very, very real and very, very painful.

He slipped his left hand into his pocket squeezing his wand as tight as he could until his knuckles couldn't remember how to straighten, the physical discomfort taking the sharpness from the boiling sensation in his chest. To his right Luna placed her hand over his right hand. He hadn't realised he was clenching his knee just as tightly but she had noticed. He looked towards her relaxing his hand and seeing the tears that rolled silently down her face. She was not sobbing or restraining herself in anyway. Her pale still face reminded him of the saint's statues that muggles had thought could cry real tears. He wanted to say something, the right thing to take away the reason she cried but he knew that there was no such thing. Music started up, a ballad, something Lavender must have liked and Robert Brown had rejoined his family and was making his way down the makeshift aisle. Professors, family members, friends and the remaining members of Dumbledore's Army shuffled out from their seats to follow.

Neville was certain he would never smell the scent of lavender again without feeling kicked in the stomach.

Pravati Patil had tied her hair in the kind of ribbon Lavender had always favoured and she was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Brown when Neville entered the house. He shook Robert Brown's hand mumbling the kind of platitudes that he had been mumbling for weeks. He didn't know what to say and so fell back on the formalities and traditions of such things. Neville felt he had never known what to say even in the simplest, least emotional occasions and so was forever grateful that in all these most complicated and emotional moments he was followed by Luna.

Underneath the most subtle outfit Neville thought she owned peaked a pair of purple star covered sneakers that he found reassuring. He watched with admiration as she unobtrusively said the things that even in the worst of times made people feel just that little bit better, just a little more understood. Try as he might Neville could never memorise her words only the swift lightening of the person's features as she talked. It was as if all the things that made her so ungainly in the everyday world made her so needed in a world gone mad.

Neville found Seamus and Dean near the food. Dean, who seemed to be gaining back the weight he had lost on his year hiding from Snatchers and Death Eaters, had pulled up a chair but was watching his best friend cautiously.

"Alright Neville?" he asked when he saw Neville approach.

"Alright," Neville replied out of habit, "Seamus." He smiled awkwardly at the shorter wizard.

"Neville, da man with da sword," Seamus answered, this close Neville could see that his eyes were swollen and blood shot. He'd got use to Seamus looking this way from bruising, not one to shy away from a sarcastic comment or fight but from crying it made Neville feel all the more heavy. "Aw hell, Longbottom isn't it enough that me mates been looking at me like I might explode all day. Now you gotta go and give me that look too?"

"To be fair stuff does explode around you quite a bit Finnegan," Neville answered a little shamed.

"Sure enough, but I got this rum from a bottle so…" he shrugged as he lifted the glass in his hand.

"I'm sorry Seamus."

"Ta whole tings shite." Seamus rubbed at his eyes dismissively

"Yeah, it is," Neville allowed, wishing Luna would return and fill in his silences.

"You drinking Neville?" Dean asked rising from his seat seeming happy to leave Seamus in Neville's company for a few minutes.

"I… Yeah okay," he nodded stuffing his hands into his pockets as the lanky man left to find some alcohol.

"She fought like hell fire," Seamus said abruptly.

"You provoked her often enough," Neville smiled.

"Well twas entertaining." Seamus's mouth gave a little twitch as though it was remembering how to smile. "And then I realised the makin' up was even better."

"You know you are supposed to show the dead some respect." Neville regretted instantly saying the word dead. It was an ugly, hard and obvious word in a room that looked set for high tea.

"Hey now, I have nut'ing but respect for everyt'ing that woman was and did." There was such sincerity in Seamus's voice that Neville wished he'd slapped him instead.

"Blimey, Seamus, I know."

"Especially when we was makin' up." Seamus grinned up at him.

"You shit, Seamus Finnegan," Neville let slip.

"Good ta know da Commander's still awkward about some t'ings."

"Most things."

"Neville, mate, fire whisky." Dean offered a glass as he returned.

"Ta," Neville said taking the amber liquid gladly.

"You came in with Luna right?" he asked, "Is she doing okay?"

Neville swallowed a gulp of whisky coughing slightly at the burn, "Yeah, for the most part," he answered unsure what was right to reveal.

"We spent a bit of time together after the Malfoy's… she's a special one that girl."

"She is, she really is," he sighed watching Dean wave at the blonde witch with her wand tucked behind her ear.

"Right ta special girls and the end ta the bastards that t'reaten them," Seamus said raising his glass determinedly.

_**The parting glass is not mine. It is a traditional Irish song and may well be a Scottish one too. If you wish to hear it sung I would recommend Ed Sheeran's album +. Thank you once again for reading along with me. Reviews are always delighted in.**_


	5. Proper respect

Ginny Weasley looked more subdued than Neville could really remember. Though he had a foggy memory of a peculiarly tiny and pale Ginny in her first year that had always been well and truly devoured by the Ginny of Quidditch, bat bogey hexes, Dumbledore's Army and a tango he had managed in his fourth year.

She pulled her curtain of red hair over her left shoulder as she approached Seamus, Dean and Neville.

"Hands up if you're up for a moratorium on any more of us dying."

"I'm not sure you could police that one Gin," said Dean reasonably.

"Sure, sure jump up and down on the best idea I've had in months why don't you?" she smirked tiredly. "It's good to see you Neville," she poked him in the arm in a place deviously honed by practice on six older brothers.

"Blimey Ginny! You don't need a wand when you can do that much damage with one finger," he said rubbing at his arm certain he would find a perfect Ginny finger shaped hole.

"Ha," she said a little flatly as they stared into the middle distance and felt the small talk dry up and blow away into the lavender scented conservatory.

It was Seamus endowed with just enough boozy courage who continued the conversation. "So Ginny Weasley, you going ta be a war bride now?" he theatrically bobbed his head in the direction of Harry.

"Finnegan, grieving whatever you are, won't stop me from hexing you," she glared.

"Mercy," he replied spreading his palms in front of him, no doubt recalling some of the truly beautiful jinxes Ginny could produce when pushed.

"I still have a year left of school you know. Not to mention an entire life of my own."

"So Hogwarts will be up and running in time for another year?" Dean asked the group clearly feeling out of the loop.

"Well, it's not exactly the same but it should be liveable by the end of August," said Neville, "We salvaged most of the greenhouses and we're sourcing what we can to replace what we lost of Hogwarts' collection."

"You'll be going back? Redo your NEWT's year?" Dean asked.

"I uh, I'm not sure, I've got some things to decide," he replied, quickly adding so he wouldn't have to explain further, "Will you, I mean , do a seventh year?"

"I dunno mate," said Dean, "until now I wasn't sure it was an option." He shrugged, "I've been doing the muggle thing for a bit, three younger sisters to make up some time to, and Shay owls me more about Quidditch and girls than academics."

"Oi Thomas, I'll have ya know I am quite the scholar now," Seamus interjected running his hands through his hair. He was slowly reverting back to the scruffy kid Neville knew well from the shaved precisely dressed adult who'd recited the poem.

"Oh yes, he can now blow stuff up intentionally," Neville nodded sagely.

"Will ya hark at that? Neville 'Help me Hermione' Longbottom is pickin' on me magical talents. It's like none of ya care I'm in mourning"

"Exactly like it," smiled Ginny. "Oh Shay, you know we love you," she clarified drawing him closer to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

"Funny way of showin' it," he grumbled half-heartedly.

"Do you ever miss it?" Neville surprised himself by asking.

"Miss what?" Ginny asked confused.

"Dumbledore's Army, I dunno, some of the last year."

"What? The Carrow's idea of punishment?" Seamus asked incredulous

"The constant worry about everyone we cared about?" Ginny raised her eyebrows as far as they would go.

"I know I don't miss sleeping on cold ground and eating every third day," Dean said soberly

"Not that, obviously," said Neville chastened, "just the feeling that we were doing something important, that we were important." He looked away towards a knot of mourners that now included a softly swaying Luna and a wearied Hermione. He was annoyed with his inability to explain the feeling that had followed him around since the end of the battle and ashamed that he had mentioned it.

"You were always important Neville," Ginny said softly bring him back to the group.

"We all were," added Seamus. Neville downed the rest of the fire whiskey in his hand rather than reply.

"We should keep drinkin'," said Seamus.

"Well that's a Seamus statement if I ever heard one," Ginny coughed.

"Nah, you imp, I meant after this," he gestured at the tea cakes and vases full of lavender, "this paying of respects, we should get us all together, all of us important," he specified pointedly, "people, keep drinkin' and pay Lav some proper respect, drink and laugh and have a right gossip, she'd have loved that."

"And Fred," Ginny said firmly.

"And Ted," supplied Dean.

"Colin wasn't old enough to drink but I'm sure he would have enjoyed trying to get served," Neville sighed pushing back the image of the last time he'd seen the oldest Creevey brother. "So Galleons or should we just ask like normal people?"

"Normal people?" Ron Weasley asked as he drifted towards the assortment of cucumber sandwiches and pumpkin pasties. It seemed to Neville that it was the first time he'd seen the ginger headed wizard without Hermione in close step for some time.

"Yeah so probably not you," Ginny aimed at her older brother.

"Harpy," Ron responded with a preoccupied air that spoke of a pattern of teasing rather than any real bitterness.

"Seamus wants to keep drinking," Dean supplied diplomatically.

"So not much has changed there then."

Off Seamus's rapidly souring expression Neville said, "It's okay Ron, Ginny's already done that joke."

"That'd be right," Ron said looking away from the pasties. Neville could see that both Weasley's had matching red rimmed eyes. "So what are the _normal_ people being asked?" he exaggerated the word normal, rolling his eyes.

"Seamus was just saying that we should get the DA together for a proper drink and, ah, debrief," Neville tried to explain.

"If you're tryin' ta make it sound as fun as spending a week with a blast ended skrewt sure," Seamus mocked.

"Sounds good to me, between the Burrows and these things I'd like to get some fresh air," Ron answered ignoring Seamus's grumbling.

"Right so that's one down, Harry'll come." Ginny counted her fingers showing their chewed state.

"So ya speak for him now," Seamus poked.

"Always," Ginny said simply before moving on efficiently like the leader of an army she had been. "Ron, go ask Hermione, she'll come but you should ask anyway and ask Ernie and Susan whilst you're over there." Ron recognising the time consuming nature of an argument grabbed a sandwich from the table behind his sister before slouching back to Hermione.

"Neville, Luna will come won't she? And I think George can be talked into if Lee and Angelina will come. So that leaves Hannah, Cho, Anthony, Michael, Terry, Katie and Dennis of course..."

Neville faintly recoiled at Ginny's implication that he could speak for Luna, he could swear he'd seen Dean Thomas's eyebrows rise for a moment.

"I'll speak to Pravati and Padma if you like," offered Dean moving off towards the teary twins without further ado.

"There's actually quite a lot of us really maybe galleons would be a better idea," Neville said, pulling his gold coin from his pocket, it had never left not since his fifth year, regardless of how many others had been left at the bottom of trunks, inside socks or under beds. "I just need a location."

"The Leaky Cauldron?" Ginny suggested.

"T'ree Broomsticks?" Seamus offered.

"How 'bout where it all started? The Hog's Head, Ab'll hate it," Neville chuckled.

"Perfect" answered Seamus taking a swig of rum. "But I say we eat here first."


	6. Of Hog's Heads and Paper Umbrellas

The Hogs head looked exactly the same to Neville's eyes as he pushed the heavy wooden door open to the smell of goat and stale whiskey. There were a few aged and strange looking customers in attendance but it was mostly empty. Seamus arrived with a crack a minute after Neville catching him standing in the doorway in contemplation. "In or out Longbottom!" pushed Seamus, "Or are ya trying to get Aberforth into a right rage?"

Neville entered weaving his way to a cluster of tables towards the back of the pub. Seamus was striding towards the bar his waist coat now undone and his dress shirt untucked from his side. Neville reflected on the small moment of happiness he'd had in the conservatory that afternoon when the protean charm had set off all the DA galleons in the room, the quite searching through pockets and handbags and the polite little nods from his friends as the silently agreed. They had all kept their coins with them.

Susan Bones, Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott arrived next with Hufflepuff punctuality, Ernie offering a kind of salute before joining Seamus at the bar to order for the girls. Dean and the Patil twins arrived and it appeared that Dean's gentle ways had got Pravati to cease her sobbing much to Padma's relief. Then the larger group of Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione and George pushed open the door the last of the sunlight catching the Weasleys' hair like firefiend. Even the smell of goat was fading with the rush of warmth Neville felt for the crowd of people filling the Hog's Head with chatter and smiles.

Each time the door opened Neville looked up realising that it was not just to see who else had joined them but if it was Luna. Finally after Michael Corner and Terry Boot had arrived carrying several books having clearly stopped at Flourish and Blotts before joining them, Luna, back in stripped tights and a mishmash of layered dresses and tops, pushed open the door and smiled happily at the assembled witches and wizards.

Lee Jordan and George were at the bar talking to Aberforth, Lee was clearly doing his best to get a laugh out of the grizzled barman but George was quiet. He looked hollowed out, worse than the rest of the tired faces that surrounded him. Neville didn't realise he'd been starring till he heard Ron at his side utter, "You can't get much of a smile out of him, without Fred, I dunno, it's like he took half of George too."

"I'm sorry Ron."

"Yeah, feels like we keep saying that doesn't it?" Ron shrugged.

"Merlin, yes. It's like only Luna has anything worth saying when it comes to this stuff," Neville agreed whole heartedly.

"Luna. Ha, yeah," Ron said eyeing Neville interestedly. Neville shifted in his seat. Hermione at Ron's side, hand firmly intertwined with his gave a little sound of warning. "What?" Ron complained at her, "I haven't said anything."

"Not yet, you haven't Ronald," Hermione said meaningfully.

"Right, is there something you wanted to say Ron? 'Cause I don't think I'm up for innuendo at the moment," Neville replied aware of the look of astonishment on Hermione and Ron's faces as he'd said it. As much as he still felt like an awkward boy most of the time he was mindful he'd stopped sounding like one whilst they'd both been away.

Hermione looked uncomfortable as she answered him. "It's just that Ginny told us what you'd said during the battle, and I told Ron that he wasn't to mention it as we didn't know what had happened and it was your news to tell. Oh for heaven sakes Ron stop smirking, I'm getting a drink." She pushed her bushy brown hair behind her ear as she rose.

"So you and Hermione huh?" Neville said to Ron as she strode across the room.

"You and Luna?" Ron replied unfolding his hands palm upwards on the table like his relationship status with Hermione was something he had no control over.

"Well yeah, I think so," Neville replied as firmly as he could manage.

"You think so?" Ron responded dubiously.

"Luna."

"Ha right," said Ron clapping him on the back.

"Did I hear my name?" came a familiar lilting voice. Neville felt colour rise in his cheeks as she approached knowing that it was eradicating any signs of maturity he had cultivated moments before. "Hello Ronald," she smiled at Ron who choked on his own laughter.

"Hey Luna," Ron managed to reply but Luna looked unfazed by his behaviour. Neville folded his arms across his chest tucking his hands into his armpits daring Ron to say anything the least bit embarrassing.

"Neville tells me that you had an offer from the Ministry as well. I'm sure you'll avoid getting caught up in the Rotfang conspiracy; you have a very keen tactical mind." Despite years of such statements from Luna Ron still looked baffled by the joint compliment and odd fantasy.

Ron recovered well enough to ask, "As well?"

"Oh yes, didn't Neville tell you? He's been asked to take a place in the new intake as well," Luna replied serenely. She leant over the chair she was standing behind and extracted a paper umbrella from a nearly empty glass on the table tucking it into the side of her hair like it was a flower. Neville smiled at her wondering where on earth Aberforth had found paper umbrellas.

"Neville, mate, that's great," Ron said loudly as Hermione returned to her seat.

"What's great?" she asked placing her left hand on Ron's knee automatically.

"Neville's going to be an Auror too," Ron announced. He slipped his arm around Hermione's waist. Neville tore his gaze away from the happily glowing Luna to answer.

"I haven't decided yet. It's an honour but I'm not sure I'm up to it."

"What? You can't be serious?" Ron exclaimed.

"I'm sure Neville has his reasons Ron, just like you do," Hermione said quietly.

"What?" Neville asked Hermione affronted that Ron was considering declining.

"It's not like that."

"No, Ron's going to be helping George for a bit with the twins shop." She winced slightly at mention of the twins.

"I'll be joining up, but maybe not this intake not whilst George needs me… plus Mum's, well; she'll get use to the idea."

Luna had floated around their table to take a seat beside Neville against the wall. "It's very good of you to do that for your brother," she said, "I think I would have quite liked a brother."

Ron looked like he was about to say something about brothers not being all they're cracked up to be before he caught a glimpse of George in amongst the throng of former DA and thought better of it.


	7. In our own way

Neville could see someone unsteadily climbing on an old wooden stool. He turned to see Seamus being restored to uprightness by Ernie Macmillan's large hands. Seamus sloshed his fire whiskey above his head trying to get the dispersed members attention. Ginny, taking pity on him, placed two fingers between her lips and let a whistle rip, by her side, Harry flinched at her volume. Silence descended on Dumbledore's Army.

"Ginny," Seamus acknowledged before turning back to his audience. "Now I'm not the one ta give speeches usually. We leave that up ta Harry and Ginny and Neville, but we brought ya here today ta honour our fallen in our way. We've done enough, I t'ink, of the funerals and ceremonies ta last a lifetime, this is about us and what we lost and what we remember. Lavender Brown was a fine lass and she loved ta laugh, she loved ta gossip and she loved ta fight and I t'ink she'd like it here tonight with all of us doing just that. That's all I wanted ta say really, right, Macmillan help a bloke off this damn stool will ya?" Ernie gave a hearty guffaw as he hoisted Seamus off the chair.

"Pretty good, as a drunk Seamus speech goes really." Neville heard Ron say to Hermione. "Do you remember when we won the Quidditch last year and he smuggled something into the punch and declared himself a golden god?"

"No," Hermione blinked. "Why didn't you stop him Ron? You were a prefect!"

"I should go check on him," Neville said rising.

"Stay Neville, I don't think Seamus has had nearly as much to drink as everyone thinks." Luna caught his forearm.

"He seems pretty done in to me," he replied though he stayed where he was stilled by her soft hand.

"Yes, but I think it's more exhaustion and the relief of being back with people who really understand."

"Relief?"

"Don't you feel it too?" He let the label stew for a moment raising his eyebrow in surprise when it did fix upon the feeling he had got from returning to the Hog's Head, from surrounding himself with all these comrades in arms and no one else.

"Blimey," he said slumping back into his seat. Across the way he watched as Seamus made a joke causing Harry, who had taken his wand out and was drumming it against his side, to rock back on his chair with laughter. For weeks now every time he'd seen these faces they had looked more tired, more pale and more broken than before but here away from all the trappings of death and mourning without the requirement to remain sombre and sober, Luna was right, there was relief. Even Pravati, her legs curled up on the bench beside her and missing her best friend terribly, smiled a measure as Dean who had acquired a drawing pad and charcoal drew her likeness. No one here was going to say they didn't feel the pain they felt or hadn't shown the right amount of respect.

"It doesn't seem right to be relieved." He shook his head.

She leaned in closer so they would not be overheard. "There's no right or wrong with feelings, it's what you do with them that affects the world."

"And what are you feeling Luna?" It felt easier to ask here surrounded by a wall of noise from the rising intoxication of the Hog's heads guests and the crackling fire. She curled herself against him so that without his moving she now sat comfortably between his body and outstretched arm.

"Oh lots of things, but I think perhaps…" she said tasting the words, "safe."

How did she do that? Shift from being his loony friend to this graceful woman in his arms. There was no inauthenticity when she did it, none of the stop-start or jarring shifts he felt when he'd tried to move from tag along friend to someone you'd want to curl up with in a crowded pub. And the thought that kept leaking from the back of his mind where he'd shoved it time and time again was, the person he would have asked, that person, was the girl with the paper umbrella weaved into her blonde hair and humming to herself quietly in his arms. You could ask the humming, Rotfang conspiracy Luna. You couldn't ask the Luna that made his mind fuzzy and his palms sweaty. And yet they were the same damn person.

"Safe, yeah, safe's good." He took a mouthful of the drink Hermione had put in front of him grabbing it awkwardly with his right hand so as not to jostle Luna. It was warm and he could feel it relaxing the muscles in his neck. He'd rolled his sleeves up to his elbows after leaving the wake and Luna was intently playing with the hairs on his left arm. It tickled but it also felt startlingly intimate. He forced himself to stay still struggling with an inner monologue of repression, embarrassment and lust. He silently wished he was either drunker or on the other side of the room and yet at the same time that he was exactly where he was, who he was and with whom he was. He licked his bottom lip watching her little fingers run up a down between the dark hairs on his fair skin.

It felt like the room narrowed around them until it was just he and Luna and the bench that held them against the wall. His chest was on fire but his fingertips had gone cold. He could, from here, reach down and brush her hair from her neck and in an instant have his mouth on that space below her ear lobe and the radish shaped earing that hung there.

"Oi Luna what are ya doing ta our leader!"

And the room expanded to include Seamus Finnegan.


	8. Cause I'm Irish

"Seamus, you're drunk."

"You're only saying that 'cause I'm Irish."

"No I'm saying that because you're the bloke who lost his eyebrows every week for a month in our first year trying to get water to turn into rum. And 'cause you're drunk." Seamus looked as if he was trying to find a way to disagree with Neville's assessment of the situation.

"Hello Seamus, that was a very nice speech you gave. I'm glad you didn't fall off the stool, though I'm sure Ernie would have caught you." Seamus swiftly realised what Neville had known for years that it was impossible to continue with your own train of thought when Luna was being so very Luna at you. Luna and her big grey eyes waited for Seamus to respond.

"Right, thanks for that," he said. Behind him Neville could see Ginny hide her giggle behind her hand. It seemed that both she and Harry had tried to stop Seamus on his quest to be the most annoying interruption possible. They had failed. Neville felt they should have tried harder.

"Seamus, leave Neville and Luna alone," called Ginny when she'd ceased her giggles.

"Not till I know what's going on here. There've been goo goo eyes and a lot more besides," he dismissed Ginny without looking back. Even if Luna was right and Seamus was not as drunk as Neville had assumed he was still intoxicated enough to be unreasonable. Neville grit his teeth. "Are ya telling me that moony way Nev follows this one around the room has been reciprocated?"

"Moony?" Neville asked equally humiliated and angry.

"Aye, moony."

"Oh I quite like that, moony, a much better notion than loony," Luna sighed still leaning herself against Neville. He was quite sure that she could feel his heart ricocheting off his chest wall with the desire to give the young Irishman a swift kick. Had he truly been that obvious with his affection for Luna? He'd rather thought nobody much paid attention to the things he did and perhaps he hadn't hidden it as well as he'd hoped. Maybe it wasn't just the yelling out of his ardour in the heat of battle that had given him away.

"I am no', and never have been moony," Neville said through clenched teeth.

"If it helps Neville, I had no idea. Well not till you yelled it at me," said Harry "Course I was wandering the country side for most of the year trying not to get killed."

No Harry it does not help, thought Neville staring at the ceiling, it doesn't matter what I do they are still laughing at poor, stupid Neville.

"No you're not," said Luna as if she had read his mind before adding, "You're not moony, you are very kind and courageous and I like you very much." Neville looked down. Had she just said that? Her big grey eyes stared back at him placidly.

"You do?" Neville asked quietly.

"Aw, come now Nev when have ya known Lovegood ta say anything but the absolute truth?" Seamus said collapsing into the chair opposite. Neville could only glare at Seamus, Seamus grinned back crookedly. "What's that look about, I think it's a fine t'ing, Merlin knows ya deserve a little mooniness."

"The look is for yelling out things tha' don't concern you."

"Now, you know everything ya do concerns us all. The way I see it we're all family now"

"And If I don' agree?"

"Ha like ya have a choice!" If Luna wasn't still resting serenely against him he'd be smashing that inane grin into the table or at least trying, for all his height and weight on Seamus, the wizard was a scrappy fighter much more use to throwing actual punches than Neville.

"Seamus might be well out of order but I think he has a point," said Harry his hair still looking like he'd just stepped out of a particularly bad portkey experience. "Hear me out okay?" he said as he pulled up a chair beside the person Neville was still silently calling any number of swear words. "When the DA started it was a home work group really. Yeah we all wanted to make sure we could fight if it came down to it but I was still planning, hoping, that none of you would have to. You remember what you said to me before the Department of Mysteries? That Dumbledore's Army was about doing something real. You made it real. You made it a real Army." Harry took a deep breath and kind of slumped like he was trying to let something heavy go. "I'm the first to say people need to get the hell out of my life and get on with their own but maybe, I dunno Neville, maybe when you do this kind of thing, give people hope, a little bit of you belongs to them. But in a good way."

Neville slowly surveyed the room. People were still chatting but some, Hannah and Anthony, Ginny and Hermione, Ron and Harry had stopped to watch his reaction.

"Even that toerag Seamus Finnegan?" he finally asked, yielding.

"If I belong to the whole damn wizarding world least you can do is take Seamus," Harry laughed.

"Ya know what Potter? Next time I'll do my own explaining," Seamus said sourly.

"Very well said Harry," said Luna stretching to place a light kiss on Neville's scarred cheek, "and in answer to your first question Seamus, nothing he doesn't want me to."

Harry, Ginny, Ron and Seamus laughed caught by the surprise of her honest declaration. Neville thought darkly that Seamus's laugh sounded particularly filthy. Wishing he could project the thought 'yeah and what of it' he instead turned a delicate shade of pink.

"It's a bit like those dreams where you show up to class and you realise you have no clothes on isn't it? Everyone discussing your love life," said Hermione one of the few sympathetic faces Neville could find.

"What dreams?" Ron pounced instantly. "You haven't told me about these dreams, I think you should and in detail. They sound so much more interesting than Harry's 'there's this door and I can't open it' dreams. Is it all of your clothes or…"

"Ron! Really!" Hermione huffed.


	9. Wow

Surprisingly, Aberforth did not seem to want them all to leave, at least not as aggressively as he'd done in the past.

Ernie Macmillan had been the first to leave, still retaining a little pomposity, declaring that late nights may be good and well for some but he had a farm to run. Susan Bones had disappeared suspiciously soon after her long plait crossing the threshold into the night mere minutes later.

Padma had to wake her sleeping sister to get her to leave the warm pub. The girl had clearly needed the sleep she'd got curled around herself between her sister, Dean and Michael Corner.

Hermione and Ron had descended into familiar bickering before Hannah Abbott had found them making out in front of the ladies toilets. She'd skipped back to the mess of tables to announce it. Her voice racing ahead with such glee she'd looked almost as young as the chubby pigtailed witch Neville had partnered in Herbology for 2nd and 3rd years. Unlike that mess with Lavender in 6th year when Ron returned towing Hermione behind him there was no hint of defensiveness or maroon ears. Ginny with eyes ablaze openly laughed until Hermione in a subtle sidestep caught the girl's foot beneath her heel.

Despite the laughter, gossip and drinking Seamus had prescribed every so often there was a lull in the conversation and giddiness. In a corner, here and there, one or two faces would turn blank, pale or aged. No one would mention it and the warmth would return but Neville marked it none the less.

Luna's head now rested in his lap. Though Seamus had crassly directed everyone's attention to Neville's Luna fixation not one member of Dumbledore's Army had so much as raised an eyebrow when she'd laid herself across the bench resting her head on his knee before continuing her conversation with Ginny. He'd supposed she'd fallen asleep when Ginny and Anthony Goldstein had got into an argument over some point of logic or perhaps Quidditch or perhaps a point of logic about Quidditch, he'd had some trouble concentrating on the particulars since his fifth drink. He was aware that Anthony had lost with some certainty when he'd slurred his final arguments.

He removed the paper umbrella twirling it between his fingertips before folding in up and placing it in his shirt pocket for safe keeping. He brushed the curls from Luna's forehead the combination of exhaustion, drink and the softness of her blonde hair mesmerising him. He traced her hair line from her temple down behind her ear to her neck. Quietly, so he was sure only he had heard it, she sighed in her sleep. Her skin was perfect as the firelight danced on it and Neville wished he could run his calloused fingers all over the supple angles of her without her waking. She unconsciously rubbed her stocking clad feet together in an odd self-soothing motion he found endearing. But if asked he could hardly find anything about this girl he didn't find endearing.

"Neville!" Ginny said exasperated. It sounded as though she may have been saying his name for quite some time.

"Huh. Wha'?" he replied annoyed that for the second time that night he'd felt on the very edge of something important if unclear only to be interrupted.

"I was saying we should get Luna to bed."

"Oh, yeah, well I can take her," he said unwilling to wake Luna just to have her leave him.

"I'm sure you can, but she's staying at the Burrows tonight with us."

"Oh." He felt a petty surge of anger towards the tough little red head as though she was deliberately taking something of his. He tried to shake it off muttering about finding Luna's shoes the ones with the stars painted on them. He didn't want to look at them as he cast around for the shoes a little panicked by the notion of Luna's absence. Improbably, it was Ron who with rare insight spoke up.

"Nev, mate, you probably shouldn't go all the way back to your Gran's smelling like that. From what I remember she isn't the laughing off the youthful indiscretions type."

"Not so much, no," Neville agreed just that much more downcast.

"So you should come back to the Burrows too. Mum won't mind, well she'll make a fuss but she won't actually mind."

"And she makes a pretty good cooked breakfast after the fussing," added Ginny.

"Oh, well, I…" Ron didn't wait for Neville to finish.

"Right that's that then, I'll see you there, gotta take Hermione to hers." From his sister's look he added, "Oi mind out of the gutter Ginevra."

"Mum and Dad are still a little bit shaken about the whole year in Australia thing, they like having me home each night. I think they want to make up for not being able to protect me as much as they wanted to," Hermione explained with a shrug.

"Yeah and the big redhead git that's attached to your face most of the time now has nothing to do with it," Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Ginny Weasley I will let your brother interrupt you more often if you're not careful," Hermione said safely ensconced in Ron's arms.

Neville leant down to Luna's ear whispering, "Luna." She flinched and Neville wished he'd roused her some other more competent way. Her brow creased, her hands clenched, her eyes flicked open and she focused on his face. The tension left her features.

"Oh hello Neville," she breathed.

"Hello," he smiled.

"Did you need me for some reason," she said still looking up at him.

"No, no reason, it's just Ginny thinks it's time you went back to a real bed."

"Did you tell Ginny I was quite comfortable here?" Luna asked once again disarming him.

"I, uh, didn't like to presume," he said as she gracefully righted herself.

"Well I suppose now I am awake I should do as Ginny says." She turned her head to the side and squinted, "Are you okay Neville, I don't have my spectra specs but you do look as if Wrackspurts have got to you."

"No, I'm fine," he said handing over her spangled shoes. "It's only fire whiskey and, uh, you."

"Me?"

"Merlin's pants Luna, yes you. You, not some invisible bugs, you make my head fuzzy." He watched her slip the last shoe on before she spoke again.

"They're not bugs Neville." She gave a quick smile before quickly catching his bottom lip between hers. Her lips were soft but the kiss was not. He could feel her get to her knees on the bench as she ran her tongue between his teeth. She was now level with him, her arms coiling round his neck. He could hear his own heart beat in his ears and the strange whoosh of blood that accompanied it as he caught her middle and dragged her closer. He could taste her on each panting breath and each dart of her tongue. His own mouth moved without effort. His desire to feel Luna there against him, burning and yielding, directed his pressure and movement. Like the moment Ollivander had handed him his own cherry wand he just fit.

He pulled back taking a deep breath and resting his forehead against Luna's. "Wow." He could think of nothing else to say.


	10. The aphrodisiac qualities of cloves

"Better?" she asked.

"The fuzziness? Not so much, no," he answered.

"Definitely not Wrackspurts then," she sighed. They hadn't moved an inch his arms were still wrapped around her hips and lower back, hers draped over his shoulders. He could hear each small inhale and exhale.

"Definitely," he echoed as she released him from her arms, twisting back to her seat beside him.

"You taste like cloves," she said smoothing out her skirts.

"Probably the mulled something or the hot other thing," he answered feeling fuzzier than ever.

"Some muggles say that they are an aphrodisiac and if you plant a clove tree you will have a son. It's sympathetic magic, the shape of the flower bud is important. I wonder if it's ever been tested. Do you know?"

Neville was having some trouble following her he'd got stuck on the word aphrodisiac and everything she'd said after that had blurred and garbled. But she'd paused and was waiting for him to say something.

"The thing is, Luna, you can't kiss me like that and expect me to be able to carry on talking about spice trees."

"Oh, but you are so good at herbology, I thought you would know?"

"Thankfully none of my exams ever asked me about aphrodisiac properties of plants straight after kissing you. It would have been worse than Snape's potions finals."

Her mouth formed a perfect 'O', but she said no more. Neville had a terrible feeling that he'd hurt her somehow. He took hold of her hand. "Don't stop kissing me like that. And don't stop talking about Wrackspurts and cloves." He stared down at her hand and the perfect white crescent moons of her nails. "I just need a moment but please don't stop kissing me."

"That wasn't my intention." She took her hand back to smooth down the back of his hair. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to keep kissing her for a long time, somewhere private and quiet. He wanted to kiss every part of her. It felt dangerous and possessive, the urge to steal her away and hold her against his body for as long as he could. So instead he pressed his lips to her forehead.

"Ginny says you're going back to the Burrows tonight."

"Yes."

"Ron says I should stay there tonight too, rather than go back to Gran's all fuzzy and smelling like fire whiskey."

"Do stay," Luna said with a surprising amount of intensity. Neville looked at her, she looked a little tired but the bruises had gone, the cut lip, all the physical signs of the battle and her kidnapping. But the way she flinched when he woke her, the fact that she was staying with Ginny when she had a bedroom not a mile from the Burrows, the intensity in her normally dreamy voice worried him.

"Luna?"

"Yes Neville?"

"Are you sleeping?" he wasn't certain when he asked, but her large eyes widened and a rare pink flush came to her cheeks. "You're not are you?"

"I slept here," she said simply.

"Alright, but are you sleeping when you are alone at night?"

She looked away watching Ginny and Harry says their farewells to the others, Seamus and Lee Jordan seemed to be demanding they stay. Angelina waved them off saying that she would make sure George got home safely. "I sleep a little," said Luna.

It broke his heart. This wonderful girl, who had never broken but happily bent and swayed like a river reed when faced with the taunts of others, Luna who had given him a little of her courage to be himself and not forever try to be his father, what had they done to her? Until this moment he'd tried not to think about how different their experiences had been. Even when it had come to the very worst at Hogwarts he had only been truly alone for a day or two before he'd found Aberforth and Seamus had stumbled through the door battered and bleeding. As afraid as he'd been, as much as he'd seen, she'd seen worse, she'd felt worse. He'd been surrounded by friends; he'd had an enemy he could try to fight. What had Luna had? An old man she had met only once and a dark cellar with no wand and no escape. For every nightmare that had roused him from his sleep she must have had twenty nights too afraid to close her eyes.

"I'm not sure any of us get much sleep anymore," she said.

"No, this is differen'," he said firmly all the pain at hearing his fears confirmed had wrapped its self into a little ball of anger that she had not told him. "Why can you sleep here? With…."

"With you? I thought you knew, I feel safe with you."

"Luna, I should have stopped them, I wanted to stop them, I wanted to tear them limb from limb." The memory of Kings Cross station and the dark robed men pulling Luna between them visited him nightly now.

"And then where would we be? I'm glad Ginny was there to stop you." She pulled her knees up to her chest, the toes of her trainers balancing on the edge of the bench beneath her skirts. "Gryffindor courage sometimes needs to be tempered with prudence."

"I'll stay with you, till you fall asleep. If you want me too?" He felt it was the only thing he had to offer her now.

"Even if I talk about the aphrodisiac qualities of cloves?" He caught it the blink and you'll miss is smile, the one that said everyone was always underestimating Luna Lovegood.

"Oh I might never leave if you do that," he answered pulling her from her seat so that they could make their goodbyes.


	11. Apparating whilst drunk

Apparating whilst drunk, Neville decided as he arrived at the Burrows front garden with Luna still holding his elbow was something he wasn't desperate to do again. That way in which the world swirled and collapsed in upon itself seemed to grow exponentially with the addition of whatever it was that he'd actually consumed at the Hog's Head. Perhaps he'd been wrong about Aberforth's tolerance of their visit and the old man had decided to poison him to get what he still called a teenage gang the hell out of his pub.

He was taking deep breaths and reminding himself that Luna would never want to kiss him again if he threw up all over Mrs Weasley's peonies when the crack of Harry arriving with Ginny forced him upright. Luna was quietly twisting her long hair round her fingers and watching the sky as though she'd not noticed his sudden greenness at all. Down the end of the garden path, he watched the great care with which Harry pulled Ginny's jacket back onto her shoulders, brushed her long red hair from her face and cupping her cheek kissed her good night. It was only when Harry seemed frozen staring into Ginny's eyes that Neville thought to look away.

"They do look like they fit perfectly don't they?" Luna said watching his face closely.

"Yeah they do," he managed; the air had a chill to it even though it was summer in usually mild Devon. There was an old wellington boot lying next to the path to the door step and he tried to find that more interesting than whatever Ginny and Harry were doing at the end of the garden path. Luna's swaying slightly in the breeze slipped her hand into his and returned to staring at the night sky.

There was another crack and the sensation of air rushing into the place where Harry had stood before Neville looked up again. Ginny made her way up the path to the front door.

"Well in we go," she said urging them forward with a flick of her hands.

"Harry's not staying?" he asked.

"No, he's going back to London tonight, I don't know if it's that he likes being on his own for the first time or that masochistic streak he has but off he goes to try to get that rotten picture of Mrs Black off the wall or something."

Neville suddenly realised that he'd been hoping to catch a moment to discuss the Auror training offer with Harry. It had been to awkward to grab time with Harry at the pub when both their attentions had been divided among people who seemed to need them more. Despite Luna's reassurances and Ron's enthusiasm, Neville still felt like Harry who was so much more of a natural leader than he could ever be would have better advice to give.

"In you two. Mum will go spare if we wake her up gabbing out here all night." She pushed them forward as the front door opened for them and led into a cosy sitting room. "I wonder if Ron's home yet or if he's making a nuisance of himself with Hermione's parents?"

"The Granger's bloody love me, they think I'm brilliant." Ron came out of the kitchen holding a glass of water and looking put out with his sister's comments.

"Of course they do, who wouldn't want a gangly ginger groping their perfect daughter?" Ginny retorted sweetly.

"I'm sure Ronald isn't gangly anymore, he's filled out quite a bit in the last year," Luna said still swaying to some silent song beside Neville. There was a pause whilst everyone attempted to assimilate Luna's comment. Finding it easier to ignore rather than comment on Neville asked where he would be sleeping.

"Oh you'll be up on the fifth floor in my room. Harry often sleeps there… you aren't going to wake me up by talking parseltongue in your sleep or anything?" he grinned before swallowing the last of his water. "Come on I'll show you the way, I've got some pyjamas you can borrow too, and hey they might actually fit you."

Neville went to follow Ron's large steps up the rickety looking stair case, Luna hand still held his for a few seconds longer than he expected. On the first step he turned to see her, no longer swaying, seeming tiny in the cramped sitting room. "Night Ginny… uh night Luna, I'll see you in the morning." He felt terrible leaving her there. Ginny was more than capable of keeping Luna safe but he had only just promised to stay with her until she fell asleep and already he was climbing the stairs to Ron's bedroom and ignoring his promise. He couldn't for the life of him work out how he was going to make good on what he'd sworn less than half an hour before. He was in the Weasley's home with Ron and himself in one room and Luna in another and who would believe for a second that he only wanted to hold her till she fell asleep. He didn't quite believe it himself.

"Night Neville," Ginny said pulling off her boots and scratching at a spot on her ankle. Luna only starred back at him. Looking away he climbed the stairs as Ron pointed out bathrooms and quickly corrected himself when pointing to a doorway and saying "that's Fred and, I mean that's where George stays when he's home." Ron tried to breeze past it but there was no getting past the way the mere mention of Fred seemed to suck the air out of the room.

Being an only child Neville was impressed by the higgledy piggledy layout of the rooms and the feeling it generated that you were never alone in the Burrows. It felt alive in a way Gran's house never did. Inside Ron's Chudley Cannon's draped room he was blinded by an incoming pair of pyjamas.

"Thanks," he said peeling them off his face. "Ah Ron, where's Luna sleeping?"

"She'll bunk in with Ginny, why? You're not planning to try anything are you 'cause there's no getting past my sister, believe me I've tried," Ron answered as he tugged his shirt off over his head before replacing it with a vest that had seen better days.

"No, I… you've tried?"

"Well, Hermione shares Ginny's room when she's here." He pulled off his last sock before balling them together and aiming the socks at a jeering poster.

"And Ginny put a stop to whatever you were intending?"

"Yeah, though come to think about it Hermione may have put a stop to it anyway." Neville couldn't help but admire the relaxed way in which Ron talked about his relationship with Hermione. Scratching at his stomach, his long legs hanging off the edge of his bed there was no sign in his voice of the ridiculous road the two of them had taken to get to this point. "Truth is Harry's my best mate and we all went through some shit together but sometimes it's only Hermione who I can really talk about it with… even if she tells me off half the time."

"I always thought you enjoyed that bit"

"Well yeah, but don't tell her I said that." He smirked as Neville pulled on the maroon striped pyjama bottoms making him look like Ron's mismatched double. "Night Nev," he said as he rolled over. His breathing quickly became the snores of inebriated sleep.

"Night," Neville answered softly. He bunched the pillow up trying to get comfortable enough to sleep in a strange bed with the guilt of leaving Luna churning his stomach. He placed his wand beneath his pillow slipping his hand next to it for easy access should he need it at a moment's notice. This was ridiculous, he'd snuck about a magically fortified castle with Death Eaters and Mrs Norris on the loose to vandalise the school why couldn't he come up with a better plan for finding Luna than wandering around the Burrow's pretending he couldn't find the bathroom? He'd destroyed the covered bridge, taunted throngs of the vilest Voldemort followers but now he couldn't bear the thought of upsetting Mrs Weasley. Sleep did not come easily, it hadn't for some time now, but he found himself dozing as Ron's rhythmic snoring washed over him. It was a little like being back in Gryffindor Tower and he felt his tension ease.

There was a clear tapping at the door. Neville pulled his wand from beneath his pillow muttering 'Lumos' when Ron did not stir. He crept to the door where the impatient 'Tap. Tap. Tap.' did not stop. He was all the more aware that the floor boards were not his own and he didn't know their individual creaks but if the tapping hadn't woken Ron surely he would not.

_**Happy Easter, Passover, Therevanda, Hanuman Jayanti or season of the Cadbury cream egg (please cross out the ones that do not apply) Thank you for still reading. Should you feel like writing a review or comment, I will of course perform the dance of joy**_**.**


	12. Sleepless

The flash of long red hair told him it was Ginny the instant he opened the door.

"Thank Merlin, Neville. I was worried I'd get Ron, oh of course he's already asleep isn't he the great big lump." She peered behind him into the darkness of the attic room.

"What is it Ginny?"

"It's Luna, she's acting odd. I mean odder than Luna acts. I thought about waking up Mum but then that would make it an adult thing and then we get chucked out of the loop like usual."

"Ginny, stop. You left her alone?" He fought back the urge to shake her. It wasn't Ginny's fault that he hadn't said anything, that he hadn't done what he'd promised.

"I had to get someone Neville, nothing is going to happen to her in my bedroom" Ginny said defensively.

"Something already has," he said angrily pushing past her into the darkened hall way the glow from his wand only giving him a 5 foot circle of shadow. "I, I don' know the way," he admitted.

"Come on then," she said pushing the sleeves of her hand-me-down pyjama top up to her elbows. She steered him down the wooden stair cases. "She won't come to bed; she's sitting on my desk staring out the window not saying a thing."

"She doesn't sleep."

"She slept at the Hog's Head I saw her," Ginny answered like Neville was talking utter nonsense.

"She can't sleep at nigh', not alone, I don' know wha' they did to her bu' she's afraid," he whispered back trying to explain something he was sure he didn't understand.

"But I'm there, it's the Burrows, what is she afraid of?"

"I don' know Gin, I don' know, but she is afraid. I don' think it works like tha', I don't think she can just tell herself there's nothing to be afraid of. I shouldn' have left her." He felt so angry, at those men on the platform pulling her away, at the Malfoy's for keeping her locked up, at Ginny for not getting him sooner and himself for leaving her, she'd told him he made her feel safe and then he'd left her.

"In here," Ginny said finally opening a door on the first floor. It was a small room but clearly a girl's room bright and airy no hint of dirty socks. Her own bed and been pushed up against a wall to accommodate a cot for Luna. Lit by oil lamp the room was amiable, Luna however sat upon Ginny's desk her legs pulled up to her chest and her hands wrapped around her shins. She was staring out the window at the stars but her face seemed to register none of the beauty in it. It was almost as if she was trying to make the sun rise with sheer power of will. "Luna? Luna I got Neville," Ginny said gently. She looked back at him when Luna did not react, the worry evident on her face. Neville understood, this was not something she could hex away.

Neville moved next to the window. He could see how tightly Luna's pale hands held each other now. "Luna, I'm sorry." The pale girl did not move. "There are lots of things I'm terrible at; I think we found another one. I should have said something; I should have stayed with you. I said I would stay. I'm so sorry." He reached out to touch her shoulder and felt her shiver. He couldn't stand it any longer; he quickly slipped an arm around her shoulder and another beneath her legs hoisting her light frame up and on to the nearby cot. He could see Ginny's horror from the corner of his eye as he sat behind Luna on the low camp bed pulling her frozen figure into his chest and wrapping his arms back around her. "I'm staying now, I'm not going," he murmured as he held her. "You're safe."

It seemed hours but it may have only been minutes before Luna relaxed her head against his shoulder. "Thanks for getting me," he said quietly to Ginny who was seated on her own bed with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders watching them. "I'm sorry I snapped before."

"Eh, I'm used to it, you get snappish when you are doing what you think is important."

"She is important."

"I didn't say otherwise. She's my friend too Neville."

"I know, sorry."

"Neville, what's wrong with her? I always thought she was a lot better at dealing with all this death and destruction stuff than the rest of us… she's always been…"

"Odd?"

"No. Philosophical," Ginny corrected firmly.

"I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I was a whole lot smarter than I am. I wish I'd noticed sooner. I don't think its death she's afraid of. She's afraid to close her eyes. I know that much."

"She's closed her eyes now," Ginny said softly.

"Good," he sighed and he turned to kiss the crown of Luna's head.

"You care about her a lot don't you?"

"She used to scare me… the way she'd look at you like she could read your mind, the way she never said anything normal. I really wanted to be normal, invisible."

"You can't be invisible with Luna around," Ginny smiled.

"And I don't want to be anymore. I just want to be me, whoever that happens to be. It doesn't matter whose looking or laughing. She taught me that."

"No one's laughing at you Neville." Ginny shook her head smiling like he'd said the most absurd sentences in the history of sentences.

"How does she look?" he asked.

"Like she's sleeping, look she's even stopped holding her hands so tightly." Ginny pointed for Neville to see.

"You think I could lie her down without waking her up?" he licked his bottom lip concerned.

"Yeah, I think you could. You look exhausted too."

"Well that makes three of us then doesn't it? I'll just make sure she doesn't wake up and I'll head back up to Ron's," he said moving to the side so he could gently rest Luna's head against the pillow.

"You can't go," Ginny said appalled, "You promised Luna you'd stay."

"Ginny, I can't. It's not appropriate, your parents, Ron, Harry…"

"Bloody Hell Neville. Harry? Ron? If they really thought anything was going on in here tonight they can bloody well grow up. They ran around the countryside with Hermione and no one ever said anything about inappropriate. And I'll deal with Mum and Dad, I always do."

"You're sure?" he said as he stroked Luna's cheek.

"She can sleep when you're around. I'm sure," Ginny answered climbing under the covers of her own bed. "Put out the light and get some sleep yourself. We can work out what to do in the morning," she ordered reminding Neville of many orders similarly made in the Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall.

Neville slid himself down onto the cot beside Luna pulling a blanket up over them. He wrapped his arm around her waist and felt her hand grasp his thumb like an infant. He inhaled sharply but she did not stir again. Whispering the charm to put out the light he closed his eyes and wished that they would indeed work out what to do in the morning.


	13. Selfinflicted injuries & the other kind

"Luna… Neville wake up."

Neville opened his eyes a little before shutting them as quickly as he could. The light shining through the window was trying to destroy brain cells he could feel it. "I saw that Neville, you're awake. I don't care how much your mouth feels like a pygmy puff slept in it, the house is awake and you have to get down to the kitchen before anyone notices you spent the night in Luna's bed." He opened his eyes a slit and saw Ginny scrutinising him from up on her bed.

"Errrrghhh" was about the only sound he felt capable of producing. His head throbbed softly with every beat of his heart and it was only going to get worse when he lifted his head from its support.

"Luna, Luna, wake up, Neville's got to throw up and then get down stairs." How Ginny could be this acerbic this early in the morning was beyond reckoning. Neville felt Luna stiffen by his side. He snapped his eyes open and he found her face.

"It's morning," he said as quietly as he could. He stroked her hand beneath the blanket trying to convince her that the sun had come up and whatever had scared her the night before had been dealt with for another day.

"Morning?" she murmured before opening her large silver eyes. The flood of relief that hit him nearly cured the effects of the previous night's drunkenness. "You stayed," she said.

"I'm so sorry."

"For staying?" she asked.

"For leaving."

"Good morning Ginny, Neville stayed in your room last night," Luna said staring at Neville despite addressing Ginny. She neither forgave nor admonished him.

"And in your bed, who'd have thought it huh? Little Neville Longbottom," Ginny replied sardonically though clearly relieved that Luna was awake and Luna like again.

"Ginny, it's too early in the morning. Really, knock it off or save it for Ron," he groaned back at the both of them. A night in a cot built for one hadn't done him any favours either. "Ginny's right though I should get out of here before everyone knows I spent the night." Rather than sitting straight up he was seriously considering rolling on to the floor and crawling to the nearest bathroom. Ginny sat back up on her bed pulling her hair up and away from her face and tying it with elastic.

"The nearest bathroom's one floor up."

"Thanks," he managed as he pulled himself off the cot.

"You don't look at all well," said Luna still curled up on her bed round the warm indentation his body left.

"Self-inflicted injuries don't deserve your sympathy," he said as he tested his head with sitting. He lowered his voice, "Luna we are going to talk about this." He tried not to make it sound like a threat. He hauled himself to his feet and stuffed his wand back into his pocket. "Right… I am up."

Ginny opened her bedroom door and peered out into the hall, "Okay, out you go. One floor up Neville." Her door closed but Neville could hear the bright giggle Ginny gave behind it. He was, however, too distracted by the feeling of having been run over by the knight bus and the relief that Luna showed so little indication of the night before to do anything about it. Instead he climbed the unsteady stairs to the bathroom.

When Neville finally reached Ron's room after his detour he was glad to find him still asleep. He lay down quietly on the bed for a moment. His legs bent at the knees, his feet still on the floor, trying to make sense of the Luna he had found atop Ginny's desk.

"So where did you disappear to in the middle of the night?" Ron said surprising Neville.

"I, I…" He gave up if anything was made sense it was Ginny and her instances that if anyone had the temerity to believe anything had gone on in her room they should bloody well grow up. "I was with Luna."

"What are you mental?" Ron said rolling over on his bed to face Neville. "Mum's gonna… how'd you get past Ginny?" His desire to rant was quickly overtaken by the possibility of getting Hermione on her own. Neville raised an eyebrow.

"Ginny came and got me," he said simply too tired and nauseated to try and explain it all before Ron could jump to the worst conclusions.

"What? My sister came and got you in the middle of the night so you could spend it with Luna? Bloody Hell the world has gone mad."

"Ron," he said sitting up and staring into his hands. "Luna was… Something's wrong with Luna. Ginny came and got me 'cause Luna was acting…. strangely." There had to be a better way of explaining that. Ron, your sister came and got me, the kid who couldn't remember a password for his own front door, because Luna was almost comatose with fear. Yeah, that wouldn't work any better.

"Don't say Luna always acts strangely Ron. I swear I just might hit you." And he would, he knew it now that he'd said it, he really would hit Ron for saying the kind of offhanded remark Ron always said. Right now it was that or crying. He really didn't want to cry. Ron had also sat up and was quietly watching him when Neville turned to face him. Beneath that flop of ginger hair his eyes told Neville he had no intention of joking around.

"How is she now?"

"Awake. I don't know. She won't close her eyes at night." He felt cold. "You were there, in that cellar, what did they do to her?" Asking was like jumping into a pit and waiting to hit ground, he might fall forever.

"Blimey," Ron said, "I don't know, not really. Mr Ollivander was pretty messed up but she was okay. Bruised and cut up a bit, yeah, but okay. I don't know, I mean, I was frantic about Hermione; I wasn't paying that much attention. I thought she was alright when we got her back to Shell Cottage. I don't think they… I thought she was alright." He shrugged helplessly at his lack of information.

"Do you think they used the Cruciatus Curse on her? Like Hermione?" he winced. He wasn't sure he could bear it if Ron gave voice to that particular fear.

"I… I don't think so. You know Luna, she… she's smart she knows when not to fight. I don't think they thought she had information..." He paused looking as drained as Neville felt. "Neville, you're gonna have to ask her."

He closed his eyes. "How?" he pleaded.


	14. The space between

He was never very good at cleaning spells even with a wand that seemed to understand him a little better. But he'd almost got the smell of whiskey and goat out of his clothes. With his shirt sleeves rolled back up to his elbows and his top buttons undone he still felt over dressed for breakfast. It was, however, all he was going to manage. He followed Ron down the Burrows staircase silently counting each of the thoughts that sat in his mind like toothache. He should set them aside until he could actually do something about them but instead he prodded them and felt them explode with white hot pain.

He could smell sausages and beans and mushrooms and his stomach turned again. Ron whether catching his colour change or just happy to talk about something other than the horrible, dark, fetid things that seemed just under the surface was explaining that Mrs Weasley's fry ups could smother the worst hangover. Neville carefully hid his disbelief.

Through the sitting room was a doorway into a room with a large table and a small but busy kitchen. There was hot toast and a pot of baked beans already on the table but fry pans on the cook top were madly frying bacon and sausages and tomatoes whilst Mrs Weasley directed jugs of pumpkin juice and milk towards the table with a flick of her wand. There was a beautiful chaos to it all.

Mr Weasley felt around for his tea from behind the Prophet as Ron piled his plate with toast and beans. "Neville dear, Ginny said that you'd stayed the night do take a seat and eat, eat," Mrs Weasley ordered before disappearing round another doorway with a basket of clothes levitating behind her.

"Good Morning Mr Weasley."

"Neville, good to see you," he replied dropping the middle of his paper into his jam toast. "How's your Grandmother?"

"Gran's well."

"'Course she is. Formidable woman Augusta, formidable." Neville grinned despite himself; something in Mr Weasley's tone told him he'd been on the receiving end of one of Gran's reprimands. He took a seat beside Mr Weasley as Ginny arrived followed by Luna who had reorganised her layers of clothes in such a way as to appear she was wearing completely new clothes. Or perhaps, he thought as he took in her purple trainers she had transfigured them, she always had a talent for transfiguration.

"Errol is such a sweet owl," Luna was saying as she glided into a free chair opposite.

"If by sweet you mean utterly dumb," Ginny responded catching Neville's eye and giving a quick shake of her head to indicate nothing worrying had happened since he'd left them.

"Oh I don't think he is dumb I think he just prefers not to be distracted by the mundane world."

"Like windows?" Ginny asked dodging a plate of sautéed mushrooms with the practiced skill of a chaser. She poured herself some pumpkin juice and took a seat. Her hair now in a sleek pony tail flicked across her shoulder as she nudged her brother, "Morning you."

"Morning," Ron said through a mouthful of beans.

Neville watched as Luna cut a slice of toast into six perfect triangles before buttering each one individually.

Mr Weasley had returned to the Daily Prophet though the lead story's image now seemed to be trying to wipe jam from their clothes.

"There are usually more of us," Ron said in a low voice. "Everyone came home after, well you know, but Mum was a little obsessed with keeping us all safe. George had the worst of it and after about a month of the cotton wool and the bursting into tears whenever she saw him he said he was moving back to the flat with Lee. Everyone kinda went back to their own places after that. Percy stayed a bit longer but now it's just me and Ginny."

"Till school goes back anyway." Ginny took a bite of toast, "Eat something Neville," she said reminding him of her mother.

"Seriously it's the best thing for it mate." Ron said piling some bacon and toast on to the plate in front of him. He had little appetite and less now that he'd heard tell of how the loss of Fred had affected everyone. He picked up the fork to at least attempt some of the food supplied when he felt something graze his fingertips. Luna was rearranging her triangles of toast into little patterns on her plate but she has stretched her hand across the table to meet his and softly stroked his fingers. He wondered if she was even aware she was doing it.

From the bustle and noise in the room off the kitchen Mrs Weasley called "Arthur, Arthur, the time! You'll be late to work."

Neville took a mouthful of bacon and valiantly tried to chew and swallow, whilst the Weasley's performed the rituals of family goodbyes in which kisses must be given, hats must be found and promises not to be late to dinner must be extracted. These things still went on in this safe part of the world no matter the losses, no matter the pain that shared the same space.

He wished there was a polite and acceptable way of thanking the Weasley's. Not just for a place to sleep and a mass of food but for Ginny, bright, vibrant Ginny who had been the DA's backbone, it's momentum and his sounding board, for putting an end to Bellatrix Lestrange and all the horrors she was capable of inflicting, for putting every single one of their children in danger on that last terrible night and for dealing with what happened without losing sight of the good and kind people they were. You couldn't say any of it. Its rawness made it impolitic, impolite and improper. So he kept silent hoping that the gratefulness poured off him and they would know.

Whilst the Weasley's world hurried around him Luna tilted her head and smiled vaguely at him. Whatever sleep she had got in his arms that night had done her good. He could see it now that he was paying attention just how tired she'd looked before. Surrounded by exhausted survivors and mourners he'd forgotten that people didn't normally look like dried leaves, dull and ashy.

Summer sunlight bled through the mottled kitchen windows but Neville knew night would come again and with it whatever terrors Luna found there. He would need to ask even if the possible answers horrified him. He couldn't let her struggle on alone.


	15. I really don't

They were only a half mile into the walk but he had already decided no matter how pretty the scenery or pleasant the company hiking was not a Neville Longbottom past time. He could happily spend a life time at the bottom of a garden or knee deep in a muddy river bank looking for just the right aquatic plant but if he had to walk for miles to get there he'd sooner give up than begin.

Of course it wasn't fair to blame the walk for everything. The half mile had been spent trying to think of the right way to broach the subject of torture and trauma with regards to the young woman currently walking beside him.

The point of walking to the Lovegood's had been to broach the subject which was why he had turned down the offer of travel by floo. Luna for her part was positively giddy at the prospect of fresh air, hills, long grass and sunlight. As she kept pace with him despite their different strides he felt loathe to rip her from it and put her back in that cellar even for a moment.

So as the sun browned the back of his neck he looked for a place to sit a rest a moment away from anyone who might disturb them.

Luna didn't chatter. He remembered how Lavender and Pravati had been constantly abuzz with talk, important and unimportant; it had become soothing towards the end. Constant voices reminding them they weren't alone. Luna, however, never chattered. She talked of course, but often she would just be there quietly observing all, sometimes with a little insightful comment or kind gesture. It gave you a feeling that no matter how dotty the statement it was important when Luna said it. Or perhaps that had just been him. He longed for the chatter now. It might give him a starting point, not this cavernous nothing he was supposed to leap into.

"We used to walk this way when I was little," she said drawing an imaginary path with her finger.

"Is there somewhere we could maybe sit for a bit?" he asked.

"Here."

"What? Right here?" He searched around the rather non-descript field for any indication that it was for resting in.

"Why not?" She sat down brushing her hands across the tops of some flowering Hawksweed.

"Right, why not." He sat down beside her. He could hear bird song and the faint buzz of insects as the long grass tried to make its way up the back of his shirt. He could feel her watching him, that half smile on her lips, head tilted, looking up at him from beneath her pale eyebrows. From somewhere, unbidden, came the thought that if he didn't have to leave her tonight this would be the kind of place he could have taken her to do the kinds of things young witches and wizards did. The kinds of silly, inconsequential things he was desperate to do with her. Warm days and bare skin and soft lips, the things that you never said out loud, the things that finger tips and mouths and skin just knew how to do.

He ran the flat of his hand across the bristle on his chin. She slipped off her trainers and rested her bare feet amongst the weeds.

"You should ask me those questions, the ones you've been trying to ask since we left. I'd ask if it were me," she said simply.

"How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Know what I'm thinking."

"It's obvious isn't it?" she asked the blue of her cardigan reflecting in her grey eyes.

"Not to me."

"I pay attention. A lot of what you're thinking is there already on your face, in your eyes. The way you lick your bottom lip when you are trying to put a complex thought into words…"

"Oh." He wondered if she could really see it all painted on his face. She hadn't, in retrospect, seemed all that shocked when he'd kissed her that first time. If she really could see it all then she had seen all those possessive, sweaty thoughts that flickered through his mind even when he was trying to do the right thing.

Before he could decide what to do with this horrifying new information she added, "Of course, you did say, 'Luna we are going to talk about this.'" She did a passable imitation of his accent, abruptly slipping out of her own lilting cadence into the sounds of his home and childhood. She'd never done it before, not in all their years of sitting side by side in the library and by the Black Lake. It was so oddly her that those sweaty, heated thoughts flashed and flickered once again.

It was too easy in the midmorning sun, even with the dry lumpy ground and the scratch of the grass against his skin, to forget that he had found her lost and frozen in Ginny's room the night before. He wondered if she might be trying to get him to forget.

"Luna, what happened?" He told himself that asking the biggest question first might mean he didn't have to ask all the smaller ones.

"Nothing so bad," she said in a little voice, "you know most of it."

"You were there for nearly three months. I really don't"


	16. Stifling a scream that never was

She was quiet for a while, breaking off a stem of the seed grass and running in through her fingers. He waited. If he spoke she may not answer at all, so he waited. Her long hair fell over her shoulder shielding her face from him for a moment before she raised her hand to brush it away.

"They weren't nice men, the ones that took me. I didn't fight they said they would hurt Daddy and it was after all only me, they were only taking me, no one else." She didn't look at him as she said it, flicking the grass back and forth across her legs. "They took my wand. That was very sad; I'd had that wand since I was eleven. Mr Ollivander said it had chosen me. But that wasn't enough; one of them said I was too quiet; he didn't like it so he hit me. When I didn't cry he hit me again."

Neville felt sick to his stomach, that there were such people in the world that could strike a girl like Luna repeatedly. There was nothing to say; to say he would make them pay was ridiculous and self-aggrandising, to say he was sorry that it had happened was obvious and worthless and to say she was safe now wouldn't put an end to the fear that stalked her nights. He took her hand and held it as she continued.

"I don't know why they put me in the cellar instead of Azkaban. No one talked to me, only about me." She took a deep breath as if steeling herself for what was to come. "It was dark, most of the time. It was cold. It was hard to tell how much time had passed. I was tied up but eventually I found a nail and Mr Ollivander and I used it to undo the ropes when it looked like no one was much bothered with what we did, some of the time at least."

Luna sounded anaesthetised. He wanted to take her in his arms as he had the night before. They sat in the sunlight in a field together and yet he could not shake the feeling that they were both now in a cold, dark cellar awaiting the unknown.

"Mr Ollivander was hurt, he'd been… tortured… over and over again. They came and got him. In the dark, I could hear him scream and I didn't know if he would be returned." For the first time since she had begun she looked at him. The happy, dreamy Luna had come away and she gave him the oldest look he had ever seen. "The Malfoy's were trapped in that house too. We could hear them argue, we could catch pieces of information about what was going on outside but never enough to make sense. I would always listen though, at first because I hoped we might hear about Harry and an end to… then because…. we might know what was coming… who was coming down the stairs."

He remembered telling Harry that they'd liked pain, the Carrows. But the Carrows were all blunt force and right in front of you. He'd known when they were in for it. Seamus had delighted in it a little too much for Neville's tastes but it never came without warning and it always came with an end. The insidious wait for pain Luna was describing chilled him.

"Bellatrix Lestrange was at the house a lot, her laugh carried." Neville felt the last of his colour leave his face at the mention of that woman's name. "Sometimes she got bored." Luna's hands contracted into little fists by her sides. "Once…" she began and Neville wanted to stop her, shut out the horror she was about to tell him and forget he'd ever asked. Clenching his jaw he waited for her to finish. If she could bear what happened then he could hear it. She pulled her fisted hand out from beneath his and brought it to her mouth as if stifling a scream she'd never made.

"Once, she decided I might have information so she had me brought to her by the man with the silver hand who brought us food. She… hurt me… while she asked about Harry, his plans. I didn't have anything to tell her. Mrs Malfoy stopped her, I think. It's hard to remember." Again she took a deep breath, hands unclenched and returned to her sides. "And then in time, Harry and Ron and Hermione came and that nice elf Mr Dobby took us to Shell Cottage."

"Luna" he said hoarsely.

"Don't," she answered looking at him again with eyes that said all the wonderful possibilities she had once believed in no longer existed. "I like sitting here with you. It's nice."

"Can I hold you?" he asked instead of the many half formed things that all seemed so futile. "I'd really like to hold you right now."

She gave an almost imperceptible nod. He moved closer bringing his arm around her, reassuring himself that she was here and warmed by the sun just as he was and not in a cellar in the dark. She turned her head resting it on his shoulder.

They sat there, in the field, in the warmth, resting just upon each other for some time.

"What happens at night?" he finally asked her.

"The sun dips below the horizon and I wait till morning."

"And you haven't been able to sleep since the cellar?"

"The battle."

"The battle." He remembered Luna in the moonlight, Luna who said she was scared. He'd naively thought they'd all been scared, that he had made a difference. "Why?" against him she began to shake and he thought she was crying. Panicked he turned to see her face. She was laughing silently.

"Oh, you think that I know," she hiccoughed.

"Merlin, Luna, I just want to…" she looked a little wild still shaking in the sunlight. It was beginning to scare him more than the still, numb Luna he held against him in the night. He remembered his Gran telling him that it didn't matter what he did his parents weren't coming back. He remembered crying against her heavy woollen coat all the way home because he couldn't fix them. Sometimes Neville, she'd said, things aren't in our power to fix even if we'd give everything to fix them. He just wanted to fix Luna. He'd give everything for her.

"I can't stay with you tonight… I want to, more than anything… but…"

"Daddy. Your Gran," she finished for him, her hysterical laughter subsiding. She'd never asked for help in all the time he'd known her. Her things were taken she didn't ask for help finding them, people called her cruel names she never told the professors, even their friendship seemed to come as a surprise to her.

"I wan' to help," he said hearing the frustration in his voice. She looked at him as though he'd said the strangest thing she'd ever heard. She shook her head.

"I don't think you can."

His heart sank. She was right of course; he couldn't help any more than he could play Quidditch or make a batch of _Felix felicis. Why had he thought that talking about it might give him an answer? If Luna, clever talented Luna, had no answers how could he find the right one? Thinking he could help her was like thinking copying Crabbe and Goyle on a test was a good idea. _

"Oh Neville," she said reaching up to touch his cheek and bring him back from the twisted taunts his mind was providing. "You can't fix this. But you asked… no one asked before and you held me so I didn't have to hold myself together." He caught her hand. She was soothing him, she had been through so much, and she was soothing him. He wanted so very much to take all the fear and pain and memories from her, take them for her. He stared at her in disbelief.

"It's not enough."

"It's something," she said quietly.

She kissed him, pulling him closer to her by his shirt collar. The touch of her hand against his clavicle and her lips pressing against his so firmly overwhelmed him. Every inch of him, seconds before so tired and drained, prickled with life. He brought his hand up to her cheek, tangling his fingers in her blonde hair. He closed his eyes and breathed her in. She pushed against him one small hand placed over his heart as he let go of the soil beneath his right hand to reach for her. He rocked back against the summer hardened ground pulling her down with him, with lips and teeth and tongues he felt her gasp. There was something important he was supposed to be doing but it was all white noise beside the feeling of her.


	17. A hell of a lot more

His heart beat furiously, seemingly trying to escape his chest. The buttons of his shirt now undone did not hinder her hands as they made their way over his shoulders and down his back. He pushed her cardigan off her right shoulder, following his calloused hands with his lips. She tasted like white honeysuckle smelt on August nights.

There was a point where her neck met her shoulder; if he pressed his open lips to it he could feel a gentle shiver move through her whole body. He blew her blonde curls away from her bare skin as he pulled her waist into him. His foot still pressed into the ground she steadied herself with one free hand now griping his knee. Her mouth found his again. He raised himself resting on an elbow to meet her warm body as she crawled closer. He could hear his own muffled sighs but she was silent.

With eyes open he saw her above him ringed with a halo of sunlit curls, her large eyes closed with long pale lashes. He had pulled her cardigan and dress from her shoulders and her bare skin shimmered. In the instant before her lips returned to his she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

He could feel her legs beside his own, bare against his dress pants, the skirt of her dress becoming tangled as she rocked forward. He could feel her skin goose pimple under a trail of his kisses. He could feel the thin fingers of her left hand curl against the back of his neck. He could feel the heat of her body and his own building ever upwards.

He knew if he didn't stop the frantic movements of her hands, her lips, her tongue there would be no going back.

"Luna," he said as he took her by the shoulder to still her. "What… What was that?"

"Kissing," she said coming to rest on her knees between his legs.

"That was a hell of a lot more than just kissing." He tried to convince his wilful body to breathe normally and reroute its blood flow back to his brain. She pulled her wand from the tangle of her hair and let it fall down around her face.

"Not quite," she said simply.

"Luna, I don't like that… no that's not what I mean, Merlin, I mean who wouldn't like that…" he gestured to the ground as though a Neville and Luna tangled together still lay there. He tried to make sense of things. "I think you're trying to distract me … trying to get me to forget about things… maybe." He looked to her for confirmation but she just gazed at the grassy bank. He stroked her cheek till she looked at him. "Please, I know I'm easy to confuse…"

"Not as easy as you think, I'm sorry Neville," she said sadly.

"_You're_ sorry," he said bitterly.

"I… I wanted to thank you; I wanted to forget for a little while." He nodded, it made sense but it still hurt.

"You can just say thank you, you know? You don't have to… I want…" He started again "if you kiss me, if you do _that_, I want it to be because you want to not because you feel obligated."

She gave a little nod. It broke his heart to have it confirmed.

"I do want to kiss you Neville. You are kind and brave and sometimes you smell like fresh cut grass. I like the way you smile and the way your eyebrows bunch up when you are working through a problem. Yes, I want to kiss you very much. But you are right, kissing and everything that comes after kissing they should be happy things, not done to forget the unhappy things." She raised her eyebrows as she waited for him to respond.

"I smell like grass?"

"Yes," she said crawling back towards him. "And sometimes soil. Rich, black soil after it rains."

"And you like kissing me?"

"Yes it's quite enjoyable."

"And the things that come after kissing?" he said knowing he was testing his luck.

"I'm sure will be enjoyable too," she said dreamily. He laughed pulling her back down with him to hold her in the sunlight.

He brushed her loose hair away from his face and watched as blackbirds flew overhead. She shifted, her head resting on his chest, untangling their legs. Quietly slipping her hand into his she stared up at the sky and played with his fingers.

"Luna."

"Yes Neville."

"Thank you."

"For?"

"For being here right now… I'm glad I didn't lose you."

"I'm glad you didn't lose me either."

"I like kissing you too"

"Oh"

"I haven't forgotten Luna, I have to take you home eventually and night will come," he said wishing it to be otherwise.

"I know," she said.

"I'll think of something, I will," he said realising that he was hoping that mere determination and effort would make up for everything he lacked.


	18. Augusta Longbottom

Augusta Longbottom's house looked like Augusta Longbottom. In any case, it had always looked that way to Neville from the sharp eaves of the roof with its vulture shaped weather vane to the tall skinny entrance door and the red curtains in the upstairs windows. He had lived there as long as he could remember and yet it had always felt like it was Augusta Longbottom's house and not his home. It wasn't that Gran hadn't taken the very best care of him it was just that there was something fundamentally unhuggable about Augusta Longbottom it was a feeling that permeated the chintz couch cushions and the lamp shades with fringing.

He was aching for a shower to wash the last of the whiskey sweat and goat from his skin and to put on clothes that didn't make him feel as if he was supposed to stand to attention. He'd have to check in with Gran before he did so giving her Mr and Mrs Weasley's regards and proving he was unharmed by his night from home. He brushed the last of the soil from his good shoes on the boot scraper before heading into the sitting room.

"Neville," she said looking up from her paper; now that the Prophet was back to printing somewhat truthful articles the Longbottom residence subscription had been renewed.

"Gran." He nodded this was the closest they ever came to enthusiastic greetings. "The Weasley's wanted me to thank you for the flowers."

"They are rarely helpful in such situations but they are the expected response. How are Molly and Arthur? It's a terrible loss," she asked.

"I, ah, they seem… they are getting on with things," he said knowing there was no sufficient answer.

"Yes, yes I can see that" she mused. "Please sit. I wish to talk with you."

"I was going to have a shower, get changed," he answered looking to the stairs. "But it can wait." He sat himself in the armchair opposite resigned to, at very least, a lecture.

"Have you made your decision about the Ministries offer?" She folded the Prophet as she spoke before folding her bony arms in her lap.

"Not as such. I know it would up hold the family honour. I'm not sure I'm up to it though."

"Nonsense."

"Sorry?" Neville asked certain he'd misunderstood.

"Nonsense, you are most certainly up to it. You are, my boy, your father's son. No matter what issues you have with self-belief. I may bare some guilt in that regard but I did have the best of intentions." She waved his objections off. "However, I want you to consider if this is truly what you want."

"I thought you'd be proud."

"Proud? Young man it would be impossible for me to be more proud. That has little to do with your future profession," she rebuked.

"You don't think I should become an Auror? I thought, I mean, I'd be like Dad, like Mum."

"This is not a decision for an old woman. I have come to see that there is such a thing as being too like Frank. I only ask you to consider the life you want. You have proven to be quite capable of making the right decision."

"Gran, I..." but as always she silenced debate with a stern look and few words, he had the sense that it had taken quite a lot for her to speak her thoughts.

"No. That is all I have to say on the matter. There is something else I wish to discuss with you. The Lovegood girl."

Neville set his jaw. As intimidating a witch as his grandmother was he would not stand idly by and let Luna be insulted.

"You have spent a considerable amount of time with the girl. May I ask what your intentions are?" His grandmother had never asked for permission to interrogate him before. It came as more of a shock than her asking about his relationship.

"Luna is one of the very best people I know."

"I've no doubt." It was as if she could see into his eyes and find just what he'd been doing with Luna in that field only an hour earlier. "I don't know the girl well. She and her father are clearly idiosyncratic enough to be true Ravenclaws. However, she seems to have inherited some of her mother's strength of character, yes a very talented young woman Xenophilius's late wife." She hadn't exactly insulted Mr Lovegood but Neville still heard her indifference and for Luna's sake he felt he should defend her father.

"Mr Lovegood was instrumental in getting Harry's story out there when the Ministry wouldn't believe him," he said irritably.

"Something I believe she had no small part in… Neville, you seem determined to misunderstand me."

"I care about Luna very much and if you think I'm about to…" It was something he would normally not dare to do, defy Gran and in her own home but he felt she was coming to the end of what had become a very short rope. It was getting later, soon Luna would sit in her orange room waiting for footsteps down a staircase that existed only in her mind and he would not be there to hold her through it.

"Neville Frank Longbottom! I may be an old woman but I am still witch enough to put trained Aurors in St Mungo's." Neville recoiled the only thing worse than a howler was to have her yell at him in person. She sighed and continued in a cooler manner, "I am aware that Luna? Yes? Luna then, was taken from the Hogwarts Express at Christmas and that Ginevra Weasley had enough presence of mind to prevent you going after her like some broken wand." Although there was still enough sense left in him to see that both Luna and Ginny had been right and to go after Luna's kidnappers. One teenager against Death Eaters and Ministry goons would have been suicide. He still felt bile rise in his throat. Letting something happen to Luna was a regret he would never let go. "That you thought I would not notice your ill-tempered pacing was perhaps a function of your age but Neville, I hear you yell out in the night."

The nightmares, she'd heard the nightmares. Seamus had got pretty jack of them too back in Gryffindor Tower. You'd have thought rooming with Harry would have given them all more patience. Pretty soon though, they had all been having terrifying interruptions to their sleep and Seamus had stopped his snide remarks. He felt too raw to have this conversation. He rubbed at his face attempting to focus only to catch the lingering scent of Luna on his hands.

"Xenophilius Lovegood is not the type of man to come out of Azkaban prison unscathed. His wife was the stronger of the two. He can't be much good to his daughter at this time. She may be a determined young lady but I was there for the first war and I lost a determined and brilliant son to it." Neville knew his eyebrows were bunching in the way Luna had delighted in but this was a decidedly odd conversation. If he could just be certain of his Gran's point he might follow her arguments but whether it was tiredness and worry that confused him or his Gran's sudden concern for Luna Lovegood he knew he was struggling. His grandmother seemed to read his confusion. "In my own experience, it is sometimes after the fight when we are safest that we become undone."

The sudden clarity hit Neville like a Whomping Willow, she knew. It eradicated all coherent thoughts in its path leaving a single 'oh'.

"For the last year, you and your friends have had to be more self-reliant than children ever should. I could not be more proud of my Grandson. You are of age and you have fought a war that others fled but it would be a terrible thing for you to have learnt that you cannot now ask for help. It would be a terrible thing for you and every one of your army."

"Dumbledore's Army Gran. Not my army," he answered but the fight had left him.

"Yes, yes," she dismissed. "Your Luna Lovegood, should you require assistance, I am still your Grandmother."

"My Luna?" She looked at him as though he'd just tried to explain how he'd lost Trevor again. It was a look that demanded to know if he was being wilfully stupid to drive her to an early grave. Her features softened as she unfolded the Daily Prophet before she answered.

"Yes Neville, she is clearly yours."


	19. Under the surface

Neville had intended to shower but found himself filling the cast iron claw footed tub instead. Watching it fill he felt the flicker of that half remembered memory of his mother, his mother and bubbles and a pink square tub. He wasn't certain it was a real memory or if he'd cobbled it together from photographs of his first home and his mother's giggling round face.

He watched the steam rise from the hot water. Often it was hard to feel these simple things, hot baths, the scratch of his grandmother's sundried towels, his grandfather's shaving mirror were still real.

He stripped off his clothes sinking gratefully into the water though it was still too hot to be comfortable. If he could just sink below the water he could think clearly, slowly. It was something he'd started to do after Uncle Algie had pushed him off Blackpool pier. Under the water, gazing up at the frantic faces of his elderly relatives the world had become very simple and slow enough to understand. With some dismay he realised he was much too tall to lie down in this tub any longer.

He scrubbed the last of the dirt from beneath his finger nails dodging recollections of how exactly it had got there. He wanted to slowly run over and over her touch in his mind but he knew there were more pressing issues to work through.

Soap scum started to foam on the surface as he washed his face and hair.

His Gran didn't need him to become an Auror. It wasn't something he had to do. It was a thought that shifted the ground beneath him. He wasn't entirely sure he'd ever considered what he wanted to do only what he could do or would be allowed to do. Even when breaking all the rules he'd really only ever considered what had to be done. What he wanted was as foreign a concept as Luna's Nargles and crumple-horn snorkack.

Luna. He sighed audibly, it sounded louder in the acoustics of the bathroom. Luna, he was certain that he wanted her. In fact he was sure that that certainty had kept him afloat when all the fighting had come to an end. Luna who was now at home with her father and yet he couldn't really say that made her safe. Luna who had, what was it his grandmother had called it, come 'undone.'

He had promised to find an answer for her, for them both if he was being truly honest. And then like a great big troll he'd left her on her door step acting like his promise had been forgotten as soon as something shiny had come along. No matter what Luna said it wasn't enough to make well-meaning promises and ask stupid questions.

The water had cooled. He climbed from the tub. Rubbing himself down with a towel he decided not to shave, he would only need to do so again in the morning.

His Gran had recognised Luna's unravelling. Whilst he'd been rebuilding greenhouses and tending to plants and content to find as much time to spend with the grey eyed witch as possible, his Gran, who he'd tried to keep away from Luna out of some unnamed fear that she would disapprove in some detrimental way, had seen it.

It was appalling. The disgust he felt for his own obliviousness caught on something Dean Thomas had said at Lavender's wake. He'd asked how Luna was, he'd been concerned too.

Wrapping the towel around his waist he walked to his room pulling jeans, a t-shirt and a cardigan from the large ornate wardrobe that he'd always disliked. He tugged the jeans over his feet feeling the calm of the bath tub burn up in the familiar feeling of uselessness.

He ran his hands through his hair glad that it was now shorter and more manageable that the hair styles his Gran had cut for him growing up. Those haircuts that made him look like he'd just stepped out of the Hogwarts Gobstones club of 1947 photograph. Why? He'd never know. The photos of studious, serious Frank that still littered the good room didn't have such terrible haircuts. And how, he circled back, did his grandmother, a woman who could hex a full grown wizard before he could form a single spell in his mind and tell that Neville hadn't made his bed just by looking at him, how could she not see his haircut had just been another way of making him ridiculous? How could she see the lost look in Luna's eyes and not see _that?_

Oh yes, he was silently ranting now. The thought of those haircuts unleashed the anger that had been threatening to surface for weeks. The blind fury he'd felt raise its head when Luna had calmly pointed out his reaction to the Minister's offer was illogical, when Seamus had interrupted his thoughts at the Hog's Head, when Ginny had stood in the doorway explaining instead of getting him where he needed to be, exploded in his chest.

**IT WAS NOT FAIR.**

Hadn't he done enough, hadn't he tried hard enough. It was over. It was supposed to be over. They were supposed to be allowed to be happy, whole people now.

He heard the same kind of strangled sob that had come from Lavender Brown's mother. This time it had come from him.

That wasn't fair either. Pretty, giddy Lavender who'd been the best look out, who'd once slapped Seamus so hard he'd had a hand print on his face for an hour. They'd all expected to die in a way but it wasn't fair that she had. It wasn't fair that Seamus, explosive, dirty joke telling Seamus would always wonder if they could have been more than just silly hormonal teenagers. It wasn't fair that Hannah Abbott had lost her mum or that Dennis had lost his big brother. It wasn't fair that Hermione had 'Mudblood' carved into her forearm. It wasn't fair that Luna didn't sleep. It wasn't fair that his Mum and Dad didn't even bloody well recognise him or that he was never going to forget carrying the bodies of children off a battlefield that was his school.

And yet what did he think was going to happen, that they'd all fight and wake up the next day free and young and whole?

He was crying. He could feel those fat, hot tears run down his face.

He'd always thought Harry was amazing, brave and probably a better grandson for Augusta Longbottom than he would ever manage to be. Harry had probably felt this way every year he'd known him. All those emotions he didn't have names for making him want to scream his throat raw. Even now, not seeing clearly through the smear of tears, he wanted to pull the old wardrobe down from the wall and kick it to splinters. He would do anything to rid himself of the feeling that the world had done this to screw him over, to screw them all over.

And now with the fight over when he was at his safest he too had come undone.


	20. Destination Determination Deliberation

He'd been sat there staring at that wardrobe for who knows how long. The tears had dried up quite quickly as though even his tear ducts knew he had not the energy to cry for every injustice life had dealt him, Harry, Luna, every member of Dumbledore's Army. The rage had been consumed with them. He'd been trying to control it for so long. He felt quite empty without it both desiring and fearing its return.

The emptiness did however give him the space to think, not the anxiety ridden thoughts that jostle for space like a thousand golden snitches but the slow deliberate thoughts of numbness and contemplation.

I just want to be me, he'd told Ginny with his arms wrapped around an unresponsive Luna. Who exactly was that?

Consider the life you want, his Gran had said. What did he want?

The sun drew closer to the horizon as he tried to tease out an answer.

He wanted Luna. He wanted Luna in the sunlight and Luna curled up in his arms at night. He wanted Luna's half smile and pale raised eyebrows that always gave the impression she was pleasantly surprised by everyone and everything. He wanted her insight, her gentleness and her absurdity. He wanted her faith and sense of self. He wanted her lips, her soft curves and her bare feet.

He wanted to be the man that she deserved.

He wanted to be the man his parents might have raised.

He wanted to make sure no one ever had to sit in the spell damages ward of St Mungo's every holidays wishing someone they loved could love them back.

He wanted to make sure no one ever spent their nights listening for imaginary foot falls.

There is no right and wrong when it comes to feelings, she'd told him, it's what you do with them that affect the world. He wanted to take the nightmares and affect the world.

He wanted to do what was right and good.

Maybe the hat had been right all those years ago when it had refused to let him run away from Gryffindor. Bravery was not about the absence of his doubts and fears but in the decision to do what was right in spite of them. It would become, the hat had told him, doing what was right because of them. "Bravery is not a feeling Neville Longbottom," he remembered that all too knowing voice in his head. "Do not imagine you will feel its mantle sit upon you. You do not have to be confident, I am confident enough for the both of us. Bravery is not found in seeking glory it is found in seeking honour."

He wanted to talk to Luna about everything, the bad haircuts, the sorting hat, his Gran's announcement, and how angry he felt just below the surface. He wanted to figure out the answers with her.

He picked himself up off his bed room floor pulling his wand from the dresser and slipping it into his cardigan.

There was no honour in leaving Luna to unravel.

He left his room, making his way down the stairs to find his grandmother. One thing he had learnt since Harry had started a defence against the dark art class in the come and go room of Hogwarts was that if he didn't give himself a chance to second guess his actions he could actually achieve things.

His grandmother was still in the sitting room. The Daily Prophet had long been disposed of and her green robes had been changed for a house coat and slippers. The tea pot on the counter had recently been filled. He had the impression that she had been waiting him out in some certainty that he would wade through the torment he often visited upon himself.

"Gran, I'm going out. I won't be back till morning," he said ready for a fight. His grandmother only gave a curt nod.

"To the Lovegood's I presume?"

"Ah yes." He raised an eyebrow. "Luna's not… I need to be there. I want to be there." In a way saying it aloud was like speaking in front of the DA alone for the first time, terrifying and liberating.

"I'd expect nothing less. Do make sure Xenophilius remains ignorant of your presence. I suspect the young lady is his entire world. He won't be as understanding." It was one thing to lead a resistance of other school children but it was another entirely to be spoken to by your elders as though you were not someone for whose mistake they would be held responsible.

"Neville," she said as she poured her tea. "Bring Luna here tomorrow. It is time we were properly introduced." Well, he'd blow up that bridge when he came to it.

How to apparate to the Lovegood's rook without notifying Mr Lovegood was a more immediate problem. He stepped out of the Longbottom residence closing the skinny front door behind him. It was only good manners not to apparate inside the house his grandmother had always reminded him. The best that he could hope for, he figured, was that the constant workings of The Quibbler presses would drown out his arrival.

Deliberation. Destination. Determination.

The determination was the easy bit. The reason all those stories about mothers suddenly and unconsciously apparating to their stricken children were myths was deliberation. You couldn't let desire overcome you. You had to think your way there with deliberation.

And so with deliberation he fixed on the orange bedroom with the white framed bed in a home that looked like a chess piece. The world collapsed and compressed him. By rights you should be 12ft tall and as thin as wand wood when you arrived. There was probably an explanation for why you weren't, but when you were throwing up in the bushes you never thought to ask, well maybe Hermione had.

Neville had never thought he'd master apparition having been so violently apparition sick as a child. However, like most things, when he fixed his mind to it and forgot about the laughing and pitying world he could get there in the end.

And then there was orange and Luna. Her hair was wet and fell in straggly waves down her shoulders. She had her wand drawn and aimed directly at the sound of his appearance and a look of clear eyed determination to maim or kill whatever coalesced. He hadn't seen her fight since the Astronomy Tower. He hadn't been able to find her after the covered bridge. He was certain he'd never seen that cold look upon her face before.

"Luna!"

He should have sent an owl ahead. He hadn't thought he'd just…well it was supposed to be romantic. Romance was such an absurd notion when her world was coming apart at the seams. He hadn't thought.

"Don't you do that to me Neville Longbottom!" Her pupils seemed to swallow up her normally grey eyes and her shoulders were tensed but she let her wand down anyway.


	21. A Starting Point

"Well that went well," he finally said dryly. They stared at each other neither seeming willing to cross the space between them. Despite her wand hanging at her side Neville fought a desire to put his hands up. She was breathing heavily and that icy look had not entirely left her face.

She, of course, was waiting for an explanation but he wasn't sure where to begin. It had all seemed so much clearer before he'd disapparated but he hadn't factored in the variable that was Luna Lovegood and when he did everything turned to dragon dung.

He took a moment to collect his thoughts. Licking his bottom lip and hearing the sound of the Quibbler presses churning into the night he realised that they had indeed covered his arrival though not with Luna. She continued to wait on him.

"You know Ginny said that if anyone one thought I was doing anything, you know, untoward they could bloody well grow up." He took a step forward smiling nervously. He half expected Luna to take a step backwards as he did so, she only looked at him quizzically. "My Gran said I should work out what I want. That I've proven that I can make the right decisions." Well, he thought, if you don't include apparating here unannounced. He took another step forward. "I decided that I don't want to leave you and it's not right that I should have to." He took another step and took her hands in his.  
>"I think we had to grow up pretty fast, it's no good trying to be seventeen again now."<p>

Her eyes had returned to their natural grey. Though her hand still held her new Ollivander wand he felt them relax in his own. "I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm staying, here with you. If I still make you feel safe?"

"Oh?" she said. "That was a rather roundabout way of saying that."

"Yeah, I reckon I'm better at the short sharp orders than explaining myself."

"Your plan is to hide here in my room each night?" she asked coolly.

"Well, I wouldn't call it a plan more of a starting off point," he shrugged. His feelings of inadequacy evaporated as Luna broke into a grin.

"One should always have a starting point, only a circle has no beginning," she replied. "I'm going to kiss you now. I thought I should let you know that it isn't because of obligation or sadness."

"It's not?" he found himself asking, a sprung coil of nervous energy.

"Oh no," she replied with a little shake of her head. She pushed her self forward on to her tip toes and against his lips. He caught her around her waist holding her steady as her arms wrapped around his neck. Little movements of her lips and tongue seemed designed to drive him wild. He felt her wet hair against his cheek and the curl of her smile even as she kissed him. For a moment he felt truly happy. She pulled back pulling her wet hair from her face. "Though I think you should reconsider arriving unannounced."

"Yeah, about that, I'm sorry Luna it was a stupid thing to do."

"Yes. You were very lucky you weren't on the end of a powerful Petrificus Totalus hex," she said simply.

"You'll forgive me then?" he asked never having liked being on the receiving end of that particular spell.

"You don't need forgiveness Neville. You should learn from your mistakes though."

"I keep trying to," he reached out to push a wet curl behind her ear. He felt the tension he'd been carrying leave his body. "Your hair's all wet."

"Yes it gets that way when I wash it. I could do a drying spell but sometimes it nicer to wait for it to dry of its own accord don't you think?"

"Well, you look a little like someone pushed you into the Black Lake…" he said looking her up and down as he did so. "But on you… no, I'm still worried that you'll be cold." She laughed; a bright lilting laugh and he wished he could make her sound that way always. "So I guess I'll just stay up here… maybe hide under your bed" wanting to pull her back into him and hold her tight.

"I was just going to get something to eat," she said lightly. "Would you like something?"

The mention of food was enough to bring his empty stomach into stark relief. "I, yeah, I haven't eaten since this morning," he nodded gratefully. "Gran said your Dad won't be happy with me being here… you think you can do it without letting him know?"

"Your Gran seems rather involved in all this Neville; I assume you will explain at some point? Don't worry about Daddy he's writing a new edition. It's a consuming passion."

"From what I saw when you were taken so are you."

"We've had only each other for quite a long time now," she said softly. "But," she said more brightly "I've learnt quite a bit on avoiding detection since my school was taken over by some terribly nasty people." She smiled again before quickly making her way down the stairs.

Neville sat on her iron bed waiting for her return attempting to look less awkward than he felt. He ran the back of his hand along the stubble on his cheek catching for a moment on the place where the fading pink scars of the Carrow's punishments made it hairless. Uncle Algie use to say he looked just like his mum when he was younger. But he supposed it wasn't as true now, his once round face having lost its plumpness especially in the last year. With the addition of the scars of 'punishment' and battle and the bristles of hair on his chin he'd started to look like someone he didn't even recognise. He'd never been one for mirror gazing but now he studiously avoided them always caught off guard by the face that stared back. He couldn't help but wonder what Luna saw when she looked at him, though Luna never seemed particularly fixated on outward appearances.

Luna appeared at the top of her stairs, her wand tucked behind her ear, whilst she carried a plate of sandwiches and what looked like a mousse concoction. Beneath her arm she'd placed a flask. He moved to take the plates from her grasp. "You know you're seventeen now Luna you can use magic for this," he said.

"Perhaps." She shrugged but said no more on the topic. She sat down on her bed crossing her legs in front of her and bunching several pillows behind her back. Taking the flask she removed the lid taping it once with her wand and saying "Germino" before another lid popped into existence. "It's not gurdyroot," she said pouring him a cup of the hot liquid. She pushed the plate of sandwiches towards him taking the plate of dessert herself.

"You're not having the sandwiches?" he asked.

"I much prefer pudding." I hope there's pudding, she'd said that the day he'd first met her and now he was watching her eat pudding on her bed in her pyjamas. He liked the way she ate pudding as though it should be consumed instantly in case something should happen that might prevent you from eating it later. One should never have to regret missing out on pudding.

He took a bite out of the roughly made sandwich glad to find that it was not full of gurdyroot, dirigible plum or gulping plimpies.

"You won't be able to keep doing this. You can't stay with me each night so I can sleep. It isn't right for you to upend your life for me," she said between mouthfuls of the chocolate concoction.

"I know" he answered softly. "The thing is when Gran stopped me today she said something, well a lot of things really but one thing did make me think. I've been having nightmares, big ones, not the potions class with Snape ones, but you being taken from the train, Harry dead, the Carrow's torturing first years, Voldemort winning. They really bugged Seamus and Gran said she could hear me yell out in my sleep. I didn't notice, you see, 'cause I was more worried about you but I reckon I don't have them when I'm with you."

"No nightmares at all?" she asked.

"So far, it's only been two nights. I feel safe with you too or calm, it might be calm." He was beginning to feel as if he would spend his whole life shrugging.

"Two data points do not prove a supposition," she blinked.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure we are in the realms of logic here and I don't have a better answer right now."

"I didn't mean it as a criticism. I think we have no choice but to proceed on faith," she lent in as though she was telling him a great secret, "anyone can take action with evidence but it is much more interesting to do so without it."

Neville wasn't entirely sure that interesting made it better but there was something to be said for just believing things would have to get better, especially if it meant time in her company. He had wondered if he was doing the right thing by pursuing her when everyone and everything was so broken. The thought of being without her, even if she never kissed him again, however always brought him up short. On faith, he had taken it that Luna would tell him what she didn't want.

"So. On faith then?" he asked raising his eyebrow.

"Faith."

_**My thanks to One Wing Writer who left me a wonderful thoughtful review. OWW is of course right the ending of this chapter was not good enough. Luna just didn't reply quickly enough and I wanted to post something. Worst reason ever! So here you go peoples who still read this – a better end to the chapter.**_


	22. Everything Out Loud

Luna drifted in and out of her room for much of the evening. It was not easy to tell if it was her natural state of being when she was home with her father or if she did so to prevent him from venturing into the room where she kept a tall young man hidden. In between the visits he was glad to be able to talk to her. It was like sitting on her bed in pyjamas of orange and blue and pink she was allowed to be the Luna who had read the Quibbler out loud as he'd fished through the banks of the Black Lake for something Hadrian Whittle had mentioned in passing. He supposed he was allowed to be that Neville again too.

He started by telling her all that his Gran had said only pausing to soften the reflections on Xenophilius. She took it all in saying very little. He told her about the anger that he'd been pushing down like he had been layering anger upon anger in a great big anger sandwich and how the thought of the bad haircuts had set him off. She had laughed at that, the raucous inappropriate laughter that he had grown to adore for its utter abandon.

He had, however, clamped his hand over her mouth when her increasing volume seemed sure to bring her father running up to her room. Her tear filled eyes had grown larger behind his hand and then she had licked him, a small pink tongue sliding across his palm in a most juvenile display. He pulled his hand away shocked and she had smiled saying, "An anger sandwich!" before falling to her side like the sheer ridiculousness of the concept had rid her of the ability to stay upright.

"Yes, well, maybe I could have explained it better," he answered peevishly, running his damp palm along his jeans.

"Oh no it was a wonderful description," she said looking up at him her face a glow and he smiled despite himself.

Here in her well lit room, discussing how hard it was to get Harry's hair just right in her mural or why the trolls in Sweden thought the trolls in Norway were far stupider and the trolls in Norway thought the reverse was true. He might well forget why he'd come but as it got darker outside and the light from her lamp seemed to light a smaller and smaller area he could see how frequently she looked to the doorway, how her toes curled against her bedspread and her shoulders arched with tension.

"Hey Luna," he said shuffling up the bed to sit beside her whilst she looked distractedly to the darkened doorway.

"Mmm," she answered looking back to him.

"I think I'm going to tell the Minister yes."

"Of course you are," she said placing a single kiss on his cheek.

"As brilliant as it is that you've always had faith in me or whatever… once and a while it would be nice to surprise you, you know?"

"Would you like me to pretend?" she asked sincerely a little crease appearing between her pale brows.

"No, not really."

"Oh good. I really wouldn't like to act as though I didn't have faith in you even if it was pretend."

"You are sure I can do this?" he asked quietly then slipping his fingers between hers where they lay between them. He might have said it aloud but it didn't prevent his stomach from dropping to his feet.

"Very sure." She tilted her head, studying him for a moment before asking "What has made up your mind?"

"Little things."

"Little things can change the world," she said solemnly but a slight rise in her intonation encouraged him to go on.

"Up until now it didn't feel like it was my choice. I thought I had to do it for Mum and Dad, for Gran and the family honour. 'Cause who turns down such an offer when they are Neville Longbottom who is shit at everything but plants and nobody expected to amount to anything…" he was staring at the far orange wall but he heard her make a little sound of disgust as he spoke. He turned to her seeing her frown but not wishing to be derailed in his explanation. "But that's not true is it? Even if Gran demanded it. Even if I was the same kid I was before the DA, before Harry… before you. Even if, I still wouldn't have to do anything."

She leant into him as if she was trying to protect him against his own self-doubts. Her hair was now dry and soft against his skin at the open neck of his t-shirt. He sighed, he could stop talking. She was so close and soft and smelt like pudding and talc. He reminded himself sternly that he had come to talk and keep her safe. He had come because he needed her as much as she needed him. He had come because it was the right thing to do and not because he was seventeen and she was beautiful.

"If I don't have to do anything," he began again. "Then I want to do something good. I want to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Even if I can't, if I fail, I want to stand there and say 'No, it isn't right!' 'Cause even if I can't stop it no one will feel like they weren't worth someone trying." He could feel her nod against his chest as he spoke. "I want the next Neville and Luna sneaking around 'cause they're seventeen and can't keep their hands off each other, not 'cause of nightmares and sleepless nights."

"They are very good reasons," she said. "I think perhaps the very reasons why the Minister asked you." Though Neville was certain Kingsley Shacklebolt had never once thought 'For horny young witches and wizards everywhere' he felt buoyed up by her words. When he told Luna his thoughts she clarified them, she buffed them and made them shine. The fuzziness of wanting her was always offset by the ease of talking to her. Even when her bizarre fantasies and bluntly honest observations had still terrified him she had had the knack of making him talk, finding his thoughts and bringing them out.

She felt warm and he could feel the slow rise and fall of her chest against him. "Luna?"

"Mmm?"

"You want to go to sleep?" It had been the kind of day where too much thinking is done, where too much talking is done and he felt the least used parts of him crumbling under the exertion.

"Yes Neville, that would be nice," and she slipped her feet beneath the covers.

She slipped her wand and hand beneath the pillow just as he had done. There had been a time when they had never done such things. When the light went out he felt her clench beside him. In the darkness her waist length hair swirled around them both. He lay on his back unwilling to move lest he disturb her, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight.

"I'm still here," he whispered and she moved against him like a quill feather and closed her eyes. He watched her moon lit brow relax, her small pink lips parting as her quiet rhythmic breaths beat him onwards to unconsciousness.


	23. Awakened

A strangled shriek escaped his lips, not a scream, not a yell, nothing masculine. A gasping yelp as the world came into focus. There was someone straddling him. Where the fuck was he?

He grabbed the figure rolling to flip them off him realising mid flip that the giggling sound was not a nightmare inferni Bellatrix but Luna, a swirling blonde and pyjama'd Luna. She landed against the mattress with a muffled thud, air escaping her like a sigh.

"Bloody Hell!" he said breathlessly as he held himself above her so as not to crush her beneath him. Her large eyes, wide, stared back at him. "You nearly gave me heart failure."

"Evidently," she said. "Neville you scream in Mermaid."

"Were you trying to get back at me for yesterday?"

"No, I merely wanted to tell you how well I slept but you were still asleep and while I considered how best to wake you, you woke up and started to speak in Mermaid," she answered serenely. He collapsed to her side still suspecting she had done it in some part to punish him for his hopeless attempt at romance.

"I do not speak Mermaid," he rubbed at his eyes with the flats of his hands his head thrown back against the pillow. "Luna!" he said realising that his attempt at Mermish would have woken the other resident of the rook, "Your Dad!"

"Muffilato, Neville."

"Oh right." Now that he was reassured that there were no reanimated Death Eaters here to kill them he was very aware that he was in her bed, that he was panting a little even now. He was very aware that even having just woken up with her hair like Medusa's snakes and a little sleep still crusted in the corner of her eye she was still so very attractive. If he stayed here too long under the humid sheets remembering the flare of her hips under her loose shirt and the pleasant pinkness of her surprised mouth as she lay beneath him and how very close she was now all the control, hard won by thoughts of what she'd been through, of the kind of man he wanted to be, would melt and puddle like so many cauldrons in Snape's potion lessons.

He could feel her watch him as he slid out from under her buttercup yellow sheets. Curling and hunching over his erection he turned his back to her. He was grateful for the tension of the jeans he'd slept in keeping him in check.

She was right this couldn't work long term. Being so close to her throughout the night was not going to do him any favours. School robes had been much better at dealing with puberty than muggle clothing, as had bed hangings and the kinds of silencing charms and cleaning spells boys always mastered first.

"Neville?" she said softly behind him, thankfully not touching him.

"I should get going. Morning stuff to do. You have, I reckon." His voice came out in a higher pitched staccato.

"I was sitting on top of you a few moments ago. I don't think leaving now is going to keep your secret." Her dreamy voice may well have rattled windows for the loudness it had in his head.

"Luna!" he said feeling the room grow darker as embarrassment narrowed his senses.

"It's entirely natural. I'm not sure why you are so worried by it."

"It's no' entirely gentlemanlike and it's no' something I wan' to discuss with you."

"If I'd been upset I would have told you." Though she sounded as calm as always he heard a touch of annoyance in her tone as though his embarrassment and not his body was insulting her.

"Righ' then when you have a part of your anatomy telling everyone tha' you're constantly thinking about sex, I'll let you know if it upsets me shall I," he replied irritably unwilling to turn back to her.

"Are you certain that I don't?" she sang as he heard her slide out from under the tangle of covers.

"Not helping, Luna."

"It's morning Neville. From what I have read this happens in the morning, even if you had been thinking about the best way to replant a venomous tentacular or a really interesting cloud." He could hear her bare feet on the floor as she spoke.

"Please stop talking," he groaned. He felt the heat in his cheeks that continued to give him away even into adulthood. If she just stopped talking, he might yet distract himself enough to regain some semblance of control but she just kept talking.

"I'm going to see Daddy. Please be more relaxed when I return." He heard her soft foot falls as they descended her stairs. He fell back against the bed, embarrassment and discomfort doing more than will power could in reducing the pressure against his zipper.

Luna's honesty had always verged on tactlessness. It shouldn't not have come as a surprise that instead of blushing and politely ignoring his arousal she would decide it made interesting breakfast conversation but surely she would know it was something he could not, would not discuss. He almost wanted to disapperate before she returned and perhaps avoid any chance of similar conversations by moving to Prague and living a life of celibacy. The thought of being without Luna who, in one night of conversation, sandwiches and rest, had made him feel calmer than he had in so many months was infinitely worse than the thought of discussing anything she might throw at him now.

She had started to mark a place for a new mural above her bed. He hadn't noticed it the previous night. She must paint in a muggle fashion like Dean Thomas still drew, where had she learnt to do that? He wondered idly what the new mural would look like as he scratched at the stubble along his jaw line. He needed to shave and brush his teeth. He definitely needed, for the second day in a row, fresh clothes rather than attempting to refresh them with spells he'd never quite mastered.

Luna would have to meet Gran today. Not the passing, 'my friend Luna, oh look she has to go now, don't we have important things to do?' ways that he had been dealing with the introductions in the past but a proper, no distractions introduction. Pulling his wand from beneath the pillow he tucked it into his crumpled jeans pocket. He stood up stretching his legs as he looked out her still open window. Wild green grass sloped and dipped for as far as he could see.

"Hello Neville," she said as she crossed the threshold to her room. Her hair was twisted around itself and held up off her neck and shoulders by her wand. "Daddy's still asleep." She had washed her face, the sleep from her eye had gone and there was a pink dampness to her skin that made her look new and bright. She gave him a smile as she looked up at him one side of her mouth curling slightly more than the other as though something only noticed by her was terribly amusing.

He moved to her before she could say anything to make him unsure about his decision. Lifting her in his arms he caught her mouth with his. Her hand cupped his cheek as she extended her other arm over his shoulder. She was so close he could feel her eyelashes flutter closed on his cheek. He continued kissing her until her feet were safely on the floor.

"Better?" she asked opening her eyes.

"Much," he replied. "Luna, I… I can't talk to you about… it's not stuff you talk about… no, alright it might be natural but it's just…"

"Alright Neville," she said simply, surprising him with her willingness to let it go unexplained.

"I need to get home."

"I know."

"You're coming to tea tonight right?"

"Yes."

"You slept well?"

"Yes," she tilted her head thoughtfully.

"I wasn't thinking about plants or clouds."

"I know," she smiled knowingly and stepped back giving him room to disapperate.


	24. Tea and Sympathy

After showering, shaving and changing his clothes for clean, dry and above all comfortable ones Neville spent most of the day in the garden. The physical monotony of repetitive tasks and small achievements ticked off a mind held list slowed his thoughts to a dull hum. Much could be done with magic but he felt in the core of him that growing things was an art form. It required the knowledge of fingertips on stems and in soil and among the roots. After this raking leaves and pulling weeds seemed less a muggle chore and more a meditation.

He was glad of the sunlight and the fresh breeze, it helped remind him that the nightmare Hogwarts had become for a time was fleeting. Nevertheless his wand stayed firmly in his pocket despite its neglect and he found himself checking its presence after each small task was completed and his mind took a moment to search for the next distraction. It was well after three when he thought to clean up for tea with his grandmother and Luna.

It came as a small surprise that his anxiety about Luna and his grandmother meeting, talking, disapproving, conspiring had quickly become background noise, a ground state he could almost ignore when things required doing. Taking the stairs two at a time he swerved into his room at the top of the stairs. He changed quickly into grey trousers and a clean checked shirt before brushing his work messed hair. As he did so he pushed the heavy red curtain from the window taking in the front garden and the street below.

Luna was in the front garden. Near the mermaid fountain crusted with moss she swayed softly and seemed to study the narrow, dark brown house with an air of calm curiosity. Her blonde hair tied in a ponytail over her left shoulder caught the sunlight, her fringe obscuring part of her face.

He raced down the stairs to the front door only now certain that he had missed her in the few hours he'd been without her. He heard his grandmother call out disapprovingly as he clattered down the remaining steps to open the tall thin door. He hardly heeded her warnings. The dark entrance way was suddenly lit by the low hanging sun as he stepped out on to the path.

"Luna," he breathed.

"Oh, hello Neville," said Luna smiling.

"I didn't hear you knock,"

"I didn't knock, not yet. This house looks very like it belongs to your grandmother Neville. I have often thought the homes of magical folk often end up resembling their owners. I once heard a muggle remark that dogs frequently look like their owners, it could be the very same principle in action, do you think? I don't see much of you in this house though Neville."

"Ah, no I suppose not," he answered turning to look at the house from her vantage point. "You might find me in the back garden, I reckon."

"Yes I think that's exactly where I would find a little bit of Neville," she looked as if she had solved a complex problem with a sudden revelation. He felt warmer just standing near her when she looked this way. He wanted to pull her into him, stroking her face and press her lips on to his own. He wanted to be the reason her face took on that glow of discovery.

"Luna?" he asked watching her examine the house

"Yes."

"Do you want to come in now?"

"Oh yes that would be nice," said Luna simply, taking his hand from where it hung loosely at his side.

"Gran's inside."

"I bought her some Gurdyroot infusion. I told Daddy a gift was customary when being invited for tea and he thought the clarity of mind instilled by Gurdyroot was the best possible gift one could give." Neville blanched a little at the thought of his grandmother's take on the evil smelling, foul tasting brew Mr Lovegood held in so much regard. Luna continued up the path with no acknowledgement that the gift may be ill received. It had taken being terribly blunt for her to stop presenting him with repeated warm cups of the distasteful fluid when he had started visiting her regularly.

"That was very kind of you both. You needn't have though, truly."

"Yes I think it's customary to say that when presented with the gift too. Well done Neville." He couldn't help but feel she was taking the piss a little with that response but he was never perfectly sure when it came to Luna.

As they arrived at the entrance way Neville called to his Grandmother. "Gran, Luna's arrived," he took her pink jacket to hang up giving her back her beaded bag which she slung across her shoulder. She blinked up at him several times before he remembered that she had never been in his house and turned her to the good room's doorway.

"Neville it is impolite to needlessly yell out things across rooms," his Gran greeted him.

"Sorry Gran," said Neville. "Gran, you remember Luna Lovegood"

"Miss Lovegood." Augusta Longbottom took Luna's blue tights and yellow skirt in as she welcomed her.

"It's lovely to see you again Mrs Longbottom."

"And you."

"I brought Gurdyroot infusion, my father makes it. Neville doesn't like it but it is terribly good for you," said Luna proffering a flask of the purple liquid. Much to Neville's relief his grandmother took the infusion calmly and placed it on the sideboard.

"Then it is very generous of him to share it with us both." Luna smiled happily as she looked vaguely around the room. His grandmother raised a single eyebrow at him in askance before coughing.

"Miss Lovegood would you like a seat?" asked Mrs Longbottom.

"Oh yes thank you. Please call me Luna, almost everybody does. Though some people call me loony… I'd rather you didn't call me that." Neville tried not to shrug as she slipped into the corner chair that his grandfather had always sat in.

"No one calls you that anymore," said Neville sitting on the sofa closest to her.

"Not often, now that Ginny made them stop. I think that people find Ginny both attractive and terrifying."

"This is Ginevra Weasley?" his Gran asked.

"Yes Gran," said Neville

"I knew I liked that girl," his Gran said almost to herself.

"Nearly everybody does, I don't suppose the Death Eaters did but I'm sure everyone else does" said Luna. Neville licked his bottom lip. He couldn't think of any way to steer the conversation effectively. Nearly every topic that popped into his mind was fraught with icebergs of uncomfortable silences.

"Neville, please fetch the tea. Miss Lovegood, Luna and I are quite happy chatting." Neville did not wish to leave Luna alone and unprotected in the chintz and fringing of the good room but his Gran's tone brokered no argument. Luna looked unfazed as he rose and exited the room though he felt a delicate thread of desire pulling him back towards the room and the young woman sitting there.

Neville hated fetching the tea things. There was something about picking up the china cups that made him feel certain he was about to drop them. It was as though Trelawney's fraudulent prediction had doomed him to a life time of smashing tea cups. Even if much of his clumsiness had left him in the last few years, with the end of his growth spurt and the added confidence in his own physical abilities that the DA had given him, he dreaded its return.

From the kitchen, as he placed the sugar bowl on the tray, he could make out the low buzz of conversation in the room across the entrance hall but he could not hear its content. It at least seemed to be continuing without the prolonged pauses he feared. He felt himself straining to catch a word or two. What was Luna telling his grandmother, or worse what was his grandmother telling Luna?


	25. Outnumbered

"Neville is a remarkable person, perhaps in part because he does not see it himself," he overheard Luna say as if she was commenting upon the weather. "I am not silly enough to think he will spend his life looking after me," she continued as he approached the doorway. He held his breath willing the tea tray not to rattle.

"Miss Lovegood, from what I have heard and I have heard much since you appeared in my grandson's life, you do not require looking after."

"Neville seems to think I do"

"Hmpf. Young men believe such things from time to time. It does not make them true. But is it such a terrible thing to let someone help you for a time?"

Neville coughed. He made to enter the room feeling he had heard too much already. Luna peered owlishly at him from around the edge of the armchair. Something in her eyes indicated that she was well aware that he had heard some of what she had said. Neville sighed inwardly; there was no chance of getting anything past Gran either, he felt rather outnumbered. He placed the tea tray in front of his Grandmother and took his seat before saying anything.

"Nothing's broken," he chuckled a little nervously.

"Milk? Miss Lovegood," his grandmother asked ignoring him.

"No thank you Mrs Longbottom, just sugar." Neville smiled, her sweet tooth instantly making him feel younger. His grandmother passed him Luna's tea. Luna took the cup and saucer from his hands gently but saying nothing. There was something chilly in the small witch's demeanour and he suddenly felt as if he had done something to make her angry.

"Neville why am I here?" she asked.

"Gran wanted to meet you, properly, I told you that. She said it was high time," he answered confused.

"I believe the young lady is concerned as to my ulterior motives."

"What?" Neville said turning to his grandmother. "What ulterior motives?" only the shock of realising his Gran had so easily manipulated him kept his temper in check.

"Neville," she sighed "I only wished to determine what I might do to assist Miss Lovegood. I don't believe that you should have to carry such burdens on your own."

"I swear Luna, I though' it was just tea and possibly embarrassing baby pictures and even more embarrassing stories," turning back to Luna he tried protesting flustered.

"Luna knows that. She is, after all, an intelligent young lady." His grandmother took a measured sip from her tea.

"I don't intend to be a burden," said Luna softly.

"You're no'!" Neville could feel the anger rising in his throat.

"I see it's not just my grandson who insists on misunderstanding me, something to do with your age I suppose. I do not believe _Luna_ should carry such burdens on _her_ own, not that I believe that you should carry _hers_ and yours for you both either." His grandmother watched him patiently waiting for his anger to abate.

"What do you know of my burdens?" Luna asked her eyes fixed on his face as if she still believed him to have some part in this.

"I know war wounds when I see them, girl. I have seen far too many in my time not to know that look in your eyes. There is no need to scrutinise Neville so. He has told me very little, only that he wanted to be there for you. You know as well as I do if he had planned anything it would have been written on his face as if put there by ink and quill."

"Yes. I can see that," Luna replied shifting her gaze to his grandmother. He wanted to reach out for her, explain over and over that he would never say or think she was a burden. He wanted her to smile that bright smile of discovery she'd flashed in the front garden. He was afraid if he touched her she would shake him off.

"Good."

"No, not good," he started. "I don' understand exactly what's going on here but I reckon I've been accused of something. You two keep talking as if it's not importan' tha' I'm here at all."

"Of course it's important that you are here. Perhaps if we discuss this we can disabuse you of the ridiculous notions of chivalry that I can see fermenting in your mind. As Miss Lovegood put it when you were listening at the door, you believe she requires looking after."

"She's not sleeping," he answered bitterly.

"That may well be but help, Neville, is not the same thing as looking after of someone."

"Why? Is it wrong to wan' to look after someone you care abou'?" His leg jiggled with poorly controlled anger.

"No," said Luna she'd turned to him her large grey eyes soft with kindness once again. "Not wrong. But I'm not a child."

"And she is not your parents." He felt unable to catch his breath. "You may be struggling but you are still both responsible, mature, rational adults."

"So wha' do you wan' me to do then?" He _was_ outnumbered.

"I think it would help if you stopped thinking you had to do anything," Luna answered him.

"I'll just go upstairs shall I and you can all get on with it your selves then."

"Neville Longbottom, you are a remarkably extraordinary individual but pouting is not attractive on anyone," said Luna

"Ha," his grandmother responded "I quite like this girl."

"Thank you" Luna replied simply as though he had not been insulted at all.

"Now then, I have the names of a few people you may wish to talk to. They come highly recommended with time and some effort I am certain that you will be on your feet again my girl. None of this will ever truly leave us. But then I'm sure you are well aware of that fact."

"Thank you" Luna said again.

"As for tonight, you will stay here. If being near my Grandson gives you both comfort I'll not deny you."

And again Luna said "Thank you."


	26. Garden

He sat in silence for much of the remaining conversation. Regardless of Luna's assertion that he was pouting it was a stunned silence rather than a spiteful one. Then without warning she had said, "Mrs Longbottom, I'd like to see Neville's garden now."

And then he was shepherding her into the back garden, down the steep back stairs and into the levels of garden each held in place by brick retaining walls. They may once have been coloured but had now blended with age, moss, ivy and roots into a leafy green grey.

"Neville, you are very quiet," she said eventually as she reached out to stroke the leaves of a flutterby bush that shook as though it was thrilled by her touch.

"Playing catch up I reckon." He shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Catch up?" Her fringe fell across her eyes as she tilted her face towards him.

"Yeah. You and Gran, it was like you were ten pages ahead of me. You might not get frustrated or feel humiliated but I do. It's like you both decided Earl Grey and ginger biscuits were the best way to tell me I was doing everything wrong." The frustrated words gushed out of him.

"Why do you assume that I don't feel frustrated or humiliated? I understand that we are more than this moment in time. I know that this too will pass. It doesn't mean I don't feel." She shook her head gently, a betrayed look passing across her features.

"I'm not good at this stuff not like you are," he muttered

"So you imagine I understand feelings without ever feeling them?"

"No. I mean, I, I never, I didn't think about it." He collapsed into the admission. She was right but he had never looked at it in that way. She had always seemed so calm and indomitable. Any indications that she felt anything that in his eyes made you weak, just like him, consumed by fear and sadness and confusion, he had just assumed they were anomalies.

She was right. But he had been trying. He had been wading into emotional waters much too high for him to handle, why didn't he get some credit for that.

She pulled herself up onto a retaining wall carelessly dragging her stockinged legs across the rough brick work to make herself comfortable. The setting sun was in her eyes but he knew, as he scratched at his nose and failed to answer her adequately, that she was watching him from beneath her eyelashes. He wanted to ask her if it was meant to be this hard. He wanted to ask if he was meant to feel this wrong footed all the time.

Instead he said, "I'm sorry. I'm not sure why I thought I'd be better at this stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Well, yeah," he licked his lip; "The 'you and me' stuff. You're my best friend Luna. I thought, I thought nothing much would change."

"You thought about this 'you and me' stuff?" she echoed. He found it harder and harder to look at her.

"A lot. You'd have thought I wouldn't have time really what with Hogwarts becoming a nice little torture chamber but, yeah, all the time."

"Why?" she asked that familiar lilt of curiosity in her voice. He dug the toe of his shoe into the earth watching the damp soil crumble around the leather rather than looking at the girl who asked such difficult questions.

"'Cause. 'Cause you're Luna."

"I'm not sure what that means." She'd sit there staring at him, not blinking until he answered. You can spit fire he told himself. Nothing you did was a happy accident, you did it all. He took a deep breath. He looked up at the little witch balancing on the wall in front of him.

"You are beautiful Luna, so beautiful. And you are unfailingly patient and kind and so brilliantly yourself all the time. Why wouldn't I?"

She smiled. It was that radiant smile of discovery.

"I like your garden Neville."

He laughed. Everything else was suddenly much less important if he could see her smile like that. He took a step towards her.

"I'm glad," he said. He was standing close enough to place his hands on her knees.

"There are bits of you everywhere" she said brushing his hair from his forehead.

"Where?"

"It's obvious isn't it?" he shook his head. He could see himself reflected in her eyes. "The smell of the soil… the green of the ivy with the little flecks of yellow in it. It's the same colour as your eyes. The walls even hunch a little. There's Neville everywhere." He slid his hands over her knees and across her thighs to her hips. She bit her bottom lip still watching him intently.

"I never noticed," he murmured.

"You've never been very good at noticing Neville."

"Him? He's nobody" he felt the side of his mouth pull back in a smirk as her eyebrows raised. "Luna, I don't treat you like a child do I?" he asked feeling the need to be serious again.

She sighed softly, "Not a child no. You behave as if caring for someone means they should never be hurt or sad or lost again. As if caring enough should make those things stop and if they don't stop it's because you didn't do enough."

"Oh," it was almost painful how easily she explained the thoughts he'd never said out loud.

"I've been thinking it's a bit like casting your first spell."

"What is?"

"This 'you and me' stuff, very few of us got the feather off the desk the first time. It takes practice and if we get it wrong it doesn't mean we won't get it right eventually," she said tranquilly.

"It took me weeks."

"Well then it's a good thing I'm unfailingly patient," she smiled her teeth hidden behind her perfect pink lips, her eyes lit up with an unuttered laugh.

He kissed her. He kissed her in his garden, the one place he'd always felt certain. He kissed her because he was certain he wanted to.

His waist pushed into her knees as he gripped her hips between his hands, he felt her hands curl into the hair at the back of his neck as he pressed his mouth to her slightly open lips. Her face tilted against his, their noses missing each other. The little intake of breath, like a sigh in reverse, that came from her delighted him.

His hand left her hip snaking upwards catching under her top, his fingers suddenly stopped by the soft warm skin he found there. Her tongue between his teeth insistent in its to and fro told him he could move again. He moved his hand slowly beneath the fabric, across the flat of her stomach, around her waist and over the smooth of her back briefly slowed by the clasp of her bra.

She arched, her breasts pressed into his chest. He felt her eyelashes flutter. He exhaled against her as she flickered and wavered. She was exquisitely soft in his arms. He felt her legs part before him allowing him to pull her closer as one stockinged foot wrapped around his thigh.

In his garden the sun dipped below the horizon and he kissed Luna Lovegood and knew she was there and real and happy to let him do so.

_**I just wanted pop in here and say thank you soooo much to Illusion of the Mirror and BlueAlseides for their wonderful and helpful reviews. I really can't help but hope that the story remains up to your standards as you are both clearly so utterly clever. Blue has a story in the Luna/Neville oeuvre worth checking out and Illusion, I hope it's not too creepy to say I lurked on your tumblr and well everything was wonderful and nothing hurt. Well that's me done. If you are still reading you rock the known world.**_


	27. Starting at the end

"Neville," she said as he kissed her beneath her radish shaped earrings her voice catching between the syllables so that his name sounded like a wave rushing in and escaping out along the shoreline. His left hand tangled beneath her clothes cupped her upper back, her right leg hooked around his thigh holding him in place.

"Neville," she said again, a hand she had slid across his shoulder contracted and released with pleasure at the firm yet delicate pressure applied to her neck. Each of her small breaths raised and lowered her breasts against him.

"Neville," she said and he released her bring his head back to seek her out in the dusk's fading light, her lips were almost red. He licked his lip.

"Yes," his voice thick.

"It's your garden but it is still you grandmother's home," she whispered pressing her forehead a little mournfully to his own.

"Right," he said trying to clear his head. She smelt and tasted like ginger biscuits. "Right," he said once more. "I'm just gonna, um, sit for a bit."

He slid his hand out from under her shirt, brushing the slight burst of goose pimples where her top had left her waist exposed. He quietly unwrapped her foot from where it rested on his backside taking a step back from the wall. He was watching Luna twist her legs together and push her skirt back down over her thighs. His body shuddered. There was something utterly arousing in the small action, sliding a skirt down over legs he had been stood between moments before. He was grateful that such was their positioning that his arousal had been thrust against the wall and not Luna. He was not certain he wanted a repeat of the morning's conversation, even if a moment pressed against Luna seemed like it might be the single best experience of his life.

She hummed to herself and picked a leaf from the yellow skirt. He settled himself on the wall beside her. She leant her head on his shoulder. He liked the way that her straggly blonde hair brushed at his cheek and the odd little tune she hummed. He'd grown to love sitting with her in silence. He didn't need to be interesting or clever to keep her near him; she was interesting and clever enough for the both of them. Or maybe, he thought, it was that she actually found him interesting and maybe even clever.

"Wingardum Leviosa," she said softly.

There was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding cooking. The smell permeated the house. In the quiet of the living room Luna proof read her father's articles her legs crossed beneath her on the sofa. There was a light scritch scratch of her quill over spelling errors and rambling paragraphs.

Neville tried to write to the Minister for Magic. It should be simple. A short, polite note indicating his intent to join the Auror service but every time he went to write the salutation he got stuck.

Dear Minister?

To the Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt?

Dear Sir?

Sir?

Your great and terrifyingness?

If he couldn't write the letter how in the hell was he going to do the job. Hunched over the writing desk he was on the verge of giving up when Luna spoke up. "It helps to start with the last sentence first and work your way backwards." He wasn't sure how long she'd been watching him struggle over the parchment but as he turned to her he could see she'd stuck her quill into her hair and was smiling sweetly.

"Yours sincerely, Neville Longbottom?"

"Wasn't that easier?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow and smiled, "Wicked! But what comes next?"

"The second last line of course."

"Of course."

She glowed.

Gran had made up the sofa in the spare room so he could sleep near Luna. He was relieved. It was becoming increasingly difficult to control himself near her. If she hadn't stalled him in the garden there was no telling where his hands may have travelled next taking such delight in the easy curves and surprising firmness of her body.

The urgency he felt when she pushed against him seemed to destroy any sense that he was actually there to help her feel safe. Instead there was a liquid heat somewhere in his core expanding until he was sure it would pour out of his mouth, his fingertips, his…

There were parts of her, surprising parts of her that could subdue all rational thoughts, her collar bones, the small of her back, her dexterous fingers. That they had just as much ability to control him as the shape of her bottom, the pout of her lips and the swell of her breasts had not occurred to him until she was there in the night, curled up beside him, totally covered in loose, bright fabric and yet breathtakingly arousing.

He'd never even kissed anyone else. Well, there had been a terrible attempt at it with Ginny after the Yule Ball. She'd been sweet enough never to mention it again somehow knowing that he was not up to the same playful mockery the Weasley's visited on each other. By mutual agreement it didn't count.

When she wasn't there he could indulge the horrible insecurities about his performance, whether he was pushing her, or if she had experience that she had never spoken about to compare him to. When she was there, like he was under the Imperius curse, there was no time or space to question it only desire and his attempt to control it.

He licked his lip. He'd been staring.

There had been other dreams, ones that didn't cause him to scream out in the night. There had been dreams of Luna. Dreams he'd pushed aside because they were about his best friend, or because they were fighting a war, or because the real Luna would never want to do those things with someone like him. If he were honest, he hadn't tried all that hard to forget them. Instead he stored them like a precious mental photo album to return to in times of weakness. Now he wanted to make them all a reality, every sweaty, groaning, corporal one.

Her eyes were returned to the Quibbler articles in her lap, her fringe obscuring her face, her skirt tucked between the diamond of her crossed legs, her blue stockinged toes dangling off the edge of the sofa. He wondered if she'd ever dreamt of him. Did girls have those kinds of dreams? Did Luna, who was like no other girl?


	28. Of bottoms and Heliopaths

He was trying to button up the pyjama shirt when she walked in the room. He didn't fight the urge to suck in his stomach but was glad that a year of less than Hogwarts standard meals and the physical stress had at least made the need to do so lessen. She was wearing a borrowed pyjama shirt and was tugging it down toward her pale knees.

"Thank you for the top Neville, the bottoms don't really fit," she looked up in time to see his blush at being found underdressed. She placed the folded pyjamas on the side table.

"Oh… Well it's just to sleep in, I guess, you don't need bottoms for that," he answered hastily.

"That's what I thought, much better to make it to bed without having tripped over than to insist on bottoms."

"Yeah… You think we could stop saying bottoms now?" he asked finally managing the last of his buttons.

"If we must. Though I was rather enjoying it. Bottoms, it's a good word like willy nilly or extricate."

"Extricate?" he asked perplexed.

"Mmm doesn't it sound just like what it means?" she raised her pale eyebrows as she sat down on the double bed.

"I suppose it does," he agreed. "How did your Dad take you staying the night?"

"Daddy was keen to have me home but then your grandmother had a word. Daddy is very rarely swayed by authority but your grandmother is a rather convincing woman. I think, after speaking to her, Daddy was very glad to finish up with the floo and see me in the morning." She braided her long hair as she spoke her nimble fingers pulling wavy curls together until her hair lay in one slightly off centre plait.

"I can understand that… I'd want you home if…"

"I'm not so far away. And this is a safe place to be."

"Yeah but, well, I know how he feels." Neville shrugged pulling the covers back from the old sofa.

"It was very nice of your Grandmother to ask me to stay."

"Bit of a shock, I reckon."

"She cares about you very much Neville," Luna said dreamily smoothing the quilt beneath her hand.

"Well she's my Gran."

"I don't think she's very good at saying it in words. She does it through actions." Sometimes Luna spoke as if all of life was a puzzle to be pondered. He just wished she might not ponder his life so much. Some things just were what they were they didn't need to have reasons.

"Does what?"

"Loves you."

"She's my Gran Luna; she doesn't have to say anything. She's my Gran."

"Yes. She's helping me because she loves you."

"She wants to help you. My Gran doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do." Neville felt his eyebrows bunch. He licked his bottom lip and took a seat on the sofa

"Alright Neville." She crawled along the bed to rest her elbows on the frame at the foot of the bed and watch him. Her bare pale foot kicked up behind her. In the lower light of the room her silver eyes looked luminous like the moon she was named for.

"You gonna be okay sleeping in that bed… without… you know?"

"Without you?"

"Yeah."

"You'll stay here all night?"

"I promised. I won't leave you again. Not till you tell me to."

"I don't know. I think it will be okay. You get very warm at night you know? Maybe you're part Heliopath?"

"Heliopaths? Aren't they… didn't you say they were fire spirits that burn everything in their paths? How would that work, the managing to be part of one?"

"Flame retardant clothing?"

"I'm not sure you can wear clothing if you're trying to uh…" he blushed again.

"Make a hybrid species?" Luna asked her mouth forming a half smile.

"Yes that," he said firmly, feeling as if she was trying to bait him.

"You raise a very interesting point. Do you have any ancestors known for their peculiar burns?"

"Luna!"

She laughed. He loved her laugh. It was the kind of laugh that made you want to tickle her just to hear it. It was the sound of joy distilled.

"Luna?"

"Mmm," she answered rolling on to her back so that all he could see of her from the sofa was two bare white legs stretched out above her.

"I want to take you out."

"Out of where?" she asked her legs swinging back and forth like a ballet dancer.

"Not out of somewhere. Out. Like take you somewhere fancy for dinner or something. Do something people do when they're together."

"We do lots of things together Neville."

"Together, together… Like Ginny and Harry."

"Oh." Her head popped above the bed frame.

"Is that alright?" he asked suddenly worried.

"Yes."

"It's probably not the best time for it," he sighed. He was feeling so much less certain than he had in the garden. He rubbed at his face feeling unexpectedly tired.

"No, I'm in pyjamas," she replied distractedly.

"No I didn't mean right this second, I meant with everything that's going on."

"Is there another war on?"

"No."

"Then when I'm not in pyjamas I would quite like to be taken somewhere fancy for dinner by you Neville Longbottom."

He laughed, rocking back on the sofa with relief. Other than the Yule Ball he'd never had to ask a girl something so formal. He'd never even seen it done. Harry and Ginny had kind of just fallen on to each other and then that was that. He had no idea what had happened between Ron and Hermione but he was almost certain Ron had never asked Hermione out on a date. Kissing her and then just assuming a relationship was more Ron's speed. And Lavender and Seamus might not have been such a train wreck if there had been formal rules for how those things were supposed to go.

He felt that regardless of the relaxed rules of courtship that groping Luna in a secluded part of a garden could not be the only thing he did with her. If he wanted to continue groping Luna and he did… oh he did… that he should also make some kind of effort. Luna deserved effort.

"Why are you laughing Neville?" Only her eyes peered at him from over the edge of the heavy brown wood.

"Because I'm happy Luna. Really happy."

"It has been a while since you were happy," she didn't blink.

"That's not true, I was happy after the battle. I was happy… I've been happy." Surely he'd been happy. He looked at his feet, large feet with a crooked second toe on his right foot from walking into a table leg. He'd done the 'episkey' himself and not done it well. The next time he'd done it Luna had fixed it. Quickly pulling her wand from behind her ear and snapping the toe back into place as though it had never been broken. She was quite adept at mending him. That first time, he'd hardly had a chance to thank her before she'd skipped off to care of magical creatures her blonde curls bobbing behind her.

"You've been happy but underneath always something else, something complicated."

"It's been pretty complicated for a while," he agreed looking back at the girl with the plaited hair and the large eyes. "Are you happy?" She lifted herself back on to her knees. He waited apprehensively.

"Yes," she smiled. "It's complicated."


	29. Of parents

"Neville," she said strain still evident in her voice.

"I'm still here," he answered, his ankles resting on the arm of the lounge. When he'd put out the light he'd felt a flicker of concern that Luna alone in the guest bed might return to the curled ball of tension from the room at the Burrows. If she was talking then she was still alright and so he breathed. She whispered but she didn't need to speak loudly in the small room. He rolled onto his side and stared into the direction of her voice even though all he could make out in the dark was the wooden end of the bed.

"Neville? Tell me about your parents?" she asked softly.

In the darkness he felt cold. His jaw set with tension. Why was she asking about this now? He could feel the words 'none of your business' catch in the back of his throat. He knew that it was not a response he wanted to give Luna. She had never asked things just because or just because she wanted to make fun. She'd never been like the other kids even when they had been kids. However the complexity of such an answer always shut him down and even though it was Luna, who was never cruel, he felt angry at the question and at her for asking it. He didn't sound like himself when he answered. "You were at the Department of Mysteries, you know most of it Luna," it was a dull monotone.

"I know a little," she said. "I never asked because you seemed so worried that I would." She was right, he remembered that familiar feeling of tightness around her something akin to the feeling he had had waiting for Malfoy and his cronies to say something in class or shove him in the halls. Telling himself that Luna, just like Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny wasn't about to find his parent's situation funny didn't make it go away. Her patient inattention to it had.

"My parents were tortured to insanity by that woman Bellatrix Lestrange, her husband Rodolphus, his brother and another Death Eater that you might remember, Barty Crouch Jr. It happened after Voldemort attacked and killed Harry's parents. That's why Gran raised me. They were Aurors.

"They sound like very brave people."

"Gran says the bravest. I'm proud to be their son," he added, he did not want to leave any doubt in her mind that his silence on the matter had to do with embarrassment. His parents were brave and good.

"What were they like Neville?"

"I. Uh," no one had ever asked that before. When he was younger he would ask Gran, Grandad and Uncle Algie. Grandad had told him stories but Gran had always said they were very brave and put a swift end to any further questions. Being young he'd thought it was naughty to ask, but now looking back there was a sense of just how complicated grief is when the people you lose are still there and yet not there. His Grandmother didn't seem to know how to talk about her precious son Frank and his dear wife Alice without losing herself in it even if their only child had needed her to try more than anything.

Grandad had died and so had the stories. What he'd been left of his parents after that were a few happy photographs, a lot of Drooble's gum wrappers and the human shells whom he loved but who couldn't love him back. Above all he was left with a strong sense that it wasn't anyone else's business.

"I don't remember." As much as he wanted to keep her talking, to feel safe, to not sink into the dark cellar he wished fervently that she might find another topic. Any topic might do, even the topic of his erection would be better that the maelstrom of troubled emotions that this one set to swirling inside him.

"I think you do remember," she said her voice sounding blunted in his mind. "I think you remember something."

"I don't Luna. I was only about two."

"I remember my mother spinning me around and around by my arms. There was long grass and her dress had a large patchwork pocket on the front… It's not quite the same as other memories. I'm a lot closer to the ground for one but it is a memory… the first one I have of her." She sounded sleepy but certain.

"Luna, I." He was trying to promise her that he had no such memories. His memory had always been terrible after all. He wanted to shut down the conversation like Gran could with a simple tone but then it surfaced, the bath tub. "I remember… a pink tub. It was square shaped, no, I mean, kinda boxy, not rounded like the tub down the hall. And it's set into the tiles like it was part of them not separate. I remember my mum's face, she was laughing and she had foam… bubbles on her nose. It's not much and I don't think it's real." He felt tired. He had never told anyone that before.

"Oh it's real and it sounds lovely," Luna answered him in the dark, she sounded close to sleep.

"You don't talk about your Mum much," he said.

"No. No one's ever asked," her voice became muffled as she turned against the pillows. "And I suppose, like you, I want to keep everything I remember about her for me and no one else. It feels good to share her though. I wonder why that is?" Her lilting voice drifted as she finished the thought. He waited listening to the sounds of her breathing. She didn't speak again.

"Luna?" he asked after a few moments. She did not reply and he was certain she was asleep. She was merely a few feet away and still he missed her sleeping in his arms. "Luna," he said quietly not wishing to wake her but needing to say it regardless. "I'm not mad for you," he sighed, "I'm in love with you."

_**Me again just wanted to thank all my lovely reviewers and Jadely, Blue and furface, of course, for their recent reviews. I hope if you have got this far you continue to come back to see what Neville and Luna manage next. In the next chapter I'll post another song list for the chapters in case you feel like reading with a soundtrack**_


	30. Before It fades

There were red lights flashing in his eyes. For a moment he couldn't see. He felt fixed to the spot like he was in locked in a full body bind. There was a flash of green light and then Luna and Ginny fell before him like ragdolls from the moving stairway. No sound escaped him even though he felt his mouth gape in horror. He tried to push himself towards them but suddenly the ground beneath him seemed to incline and he slipped down and away from the rubble of Hogwarts stairways. He couldn't find his wand. Someone was crying. He tore at the rubble with his hands. He remembered the battle; he knew that it was over. And yet he knew that it was happening again. This wasn't right where was the rest of the school, why was he alone? Where was his wand? Who was crying?

He jerked awake.

The guest room was lit with the dull grey light of very early morning. His hand was gripping his wand beneath the pillow. He tried to relax his legs back over the arm of the couch from the fetal position he'd wrapped himself into during the night. Squinting into the gloom he saw her, the quilt from the guest bed swaddling her body as she sat on the floor at the foot of the old walnut bed.

"Luna?"

"You were having a nightmare," said Luna.

"Are you okay?"

"I was worried about you. I didn't want to wake you unexpectedly but I didn't want you to be alone."

"I didn't wake you did I? You need your sleep." He tried to stretch out beneath his covers hearing the crack of his shoulders as he did so.

"I was awake already," she said simply.

"didn' work then," his frustration was evident in his voice. He still felt sweaty from the fading dream.

"What were you dreaming about?"

"Wha'? Oh the dream… the battle mostly." He sat up pulling a blanket with him. He probably looked a right mess, hair worse than Harry's, sweaty and unshaved. He pushed himself off the edge of the couch and crawled next to her.

"You should tell me the dream," she looked at him as she spoke, a little glint of determination in her eyes. "When I was little and had a bad dream my mother would always climb under the covers with me and we would talk about the dream until none of it was scary anymore. But it is important to talk about it straight away; my mother said if you don't the dream fades and only leaves the fear."

"Your Mum sounds like a pretty smart witch." He knew it was something important when Luna spoke about her mother. He still felt abuzz with anxiety.

"Yes, she was. I miss her. Tell me the dream Neville, before it fades."

"It was nothing really," he said softly as he put his arm around her. She pursed her lips for a moment before he relented. "Okay, Okay… the dream. I'm frozen to the spot, there's hexes flying everywhere but I can't move and I can't see with all the flashes and then suddenly it clears and there's a flash of green and above me on the staircases you and Ginny fall." He tried to sound calm but when he said that it was her and Ginny, his two closest friends in the world, who fell his chest tightened. He forced himself to inhale.

"Is there more?" she asked him quietly.

"I try to get to you but it's like the floor slides away from you and I can't get there. I can't find my wand, I can't see anyone and someone's crying." I can't find my wand, he thought, again feeling his heart beat a little faster.

"The crying you heard, that was you," she reached up out of the quilt and softly stroked along his cheek bone. It was damp.

"Bloody Hell." He slumped, it was mortifying that he'd been sobbing in a ball on the couch in his sleep and she'd watched it all. There was part of him that wished he could make Luna see him as strong and brave and a leader of men even if she'd seen him as forgetful, clumsy and awkward for all those years they'd grown up together. A neat little revision of history so that Neville Longbottom might suddenly be the kind of man you wanted. Neville Longbottom, a messy, weepy, ball of anxiety was one of the least erotic things he could think of.

"Is it always the same dream?" Her little voice always lighting his way out of his dark thoughts.

"No, not always. There are other dreams. But this one, the battle ones they come often enough." He didn't want to keep talking about it he wanted to push it down, ignore it for a few more hours, another day. He didn't want to think about why it was Luna and Ginny who died in his dreams, why he had to stand there and why he could do nothing. He didn't want to be someone who cried. "I always know the battle is over… I remember it. But it still feels like it's happening again anyway."

"In this one Ginny and I die," she said it was not quite a question.

"I. You fall. You both fall," he didn't want to say it. Saying it made a bitter taste rise in his mouth.

"Tell me again, tell me again what happened to Ginny and I."

"I told you," his eyebrows bunched, his forehead wrinkling. "There's a flash of green light and then you fall from the staircase, you and Ginny." This time it was easier to say. The tightening of his chest didn't come. He breathed in and then out, letting go of his confusion.

She played with the edge of the quilt, her fingertips tracing the stitching like they had traced around the hair on his arms only nights before. "The flash of light, it comes before or after we fall?" Her voice was soft and lilting as always but she kept asking the same questions.

"Luna, I don't. What are… before you fall… there's the green light and then Ginny and you fall. Like you are dead, alright? You don't flail around; you fall straight down like dolls." He didn't feel scared or worried anymore he felt angry that she kept asking.

She looked up at him from underneath her pale lashes, her face still pale and serious. "What do you do when we fall?" For a moment he clenched his teeth.

"I try to reach you but the floor falls away, I can't get to you, I can't find my wand."

"How does the floor fall away?"

"I don't know Luna, it's a dream. It's like it becomes a slope and I slide down it, I try to climb back up but I can't."

"And you know we are dead? I'm dead and Ginny is dead." He looked away as she said it. Yes, he had known they were dead. He still wanted to get to them. Why did she keep making him say it? It was like she wasn't listening.

"Yes I know you are dead. You don't fall like alive people fall." The exhaustion of having to repeat himself over and over made him feel numb as he said it as if saying Ginny and Luna were dead held no horror at all. He felt her nod once beside his shoulder, a small sigh escaping her.

"How do you feel now?" she asked.

"Now? Tired, a little annoyed to be honest," he answered raising his eyebrow at her.

"But not scared?" He gave a derisive snort. She'd done it. With simple repetitive questions she'd robbed the memory and the dream of its power. He pulled her closer kissing her temple.

"Luna Lovegood," he whispered into her hair.

"Yes?"

"Your mother was a very smart witch and her daughter is very like her," she leant into him and he was for a time unconcerned that she had seen him at his worst. In its place he realised he was grateful that at his worst she had been there ever gentle, patient and clever.

"I hope so," she said so softly he wasn't sure he'd heard it, so held her all the more tightly.

_**Songs for those who want a soundtrack, or for those like me who read the same stories over and over again because not reading makes the mind dwell and like a slightly new experience**_

**Chapters and Song listings for Honour**

_**Prologue**_ Warriors with Wild Hearts by Caitlin Park

_**Chapter One **_Warriors with Wild Hearts by Caitlin Park

_**Chapter Two**_ There She Goes by the La's

_**Chapter Three**_ The parting glass by Ed Sheeran

_**Chapter Four**_ Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel

_**Chapter Five**_The feeding line by Boy & Bear

_**Chapter Six**_Timshel by Mumford & Sons

_**Chapter Seven**_Toss the feather by The Corrs

_**Chapter Eight**_The Kissing Song by Dawn Landes

_**Chapter Nine**_Great Expectations by Elbow

_**Chapter Ten**_Love your way by Powderfinger

_**Chapter Eleven**_The Ship Song by Amanda Palmer

_**Chapter Twelve**_Safe and Sound by the Electric Presidents

_**Chapter Thirteen**_The world without by A fine frenzy

_**Chapter Fourteen**_Breathe by Alexi Murdoch

_**Chapter Fifteen**_I won't give in by Neil Finn

_**Chapter Sixteen**_Kiss me by Ed Sheeran

_**Chapter Seventeen**_Cigarette By Ben Folds Five

_**Chapter Eighteen**_Short Fuse by The Black Lips

_**Chapter Nineteen**_Rise by The Frames

_**Chapter Twenty**_The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys

_**Chapter Twenty One**_Boats and Birds by Gregory and the Hawk

_**Chapter Twenty Two**_Once around the Block by Badly Drawn Boy

_**Chapter Twenty Three**_ Dans ma Rue by Zaz

_**Chapter Twenty Four**_You were a Kindness by The National

_**Chapter Twenty Five**_ An Olive Grove facing the Sea by Snow Patrol

_**Chapter Twenty Six**_ Beautiful by Trading Yesterday

_**Chapter Twenty Seven**_ Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros

_**Chapter Twenty Eight**_This is why we fight by The Decemberists

_**Chapter Twenty Nine**_Come here Boy by Imogen Heap

_**Chapter Thirty**_Sit back down by Annemarie Quinn

_**Chapter Thirty One**_Sinnerman by Nina Simmone

_**Chapter Thirty Two**_Like Lavender by Horse Feathers

_**Chapter Thirty Three**_You are the moon by The Hush Sound

_**Chapter Thirty Four**_This is how it's meant to be by Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo

_**Chapter Thirty Five **_For you I will (Confidence) by Teddy Geiger

_**Chapter Thirty Six**_Into Temptation by Crowded House

_**Chapter Thirty Seven**_Into Temptation by Crowded House


	31. Building up what you brought low

Two days after his letter signed 'Yours Sincerely, Neville Longbottom' flew to the Ministry in London, Kenneth, the Longbottom family's short eared owl arrived at the kitchen window carrying a heavy brown parcel. Inside was an intimidating stack of forms, legal, medical and magical along with instructions on times and places of attendance, acceptable dress and a plethora of other things that made him feel for all the world that he was starting school again. He was expected to present himself to Auror training on Monday the 17th of August 1998 to be among the first intake to the new Auror training program that would take one year and not the standard three. It would be only a few weeks before Luna returned to Hogwarts without him.

He finished his muesli managing to drip milk on his welcome letter in his rush to pile the forms back up and dump his bowl in the sink. His jacket was askew and his collar tucked under itself when he apparated to Hogsmeade.

It had been a rough night without Luna. He wasn't quite able to work out if it had been his worry for her or for the nightmares that would surely raise their ugly heads in her absence but sleep had been elusive. A good twelve times he'd considered sneaking down to the sitting room fire to try and reach her by floo. They'd agreed that Luna needed to be near her father and that Neville needed to stop trying so hard to look after her. Or rather Luna had said it in such a way that he could not hope to disagree. He'd woken after a few hours of restless sleep to find his galleon warm on his bedside table in the place of a warm Luna in his bed. She was safe it told him, it could not tell him much more. He smiled in the gloom of the morning; she had thought to reassure him anyway.

The complicated charms and magics that bound Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been rebuilt by much better witches and wizards than he, Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick amongst them. You could no longer apparate on to Hogwarts grounds, the brief and strange freedom to do so, being given by the brutal attack, closed off once again.

He trudged his tired self on to Hogwarts. He'd been somewhat surprised by the amount of students, former students and community members who had shown up to help rebuild, even with magic rebuilding a school required time, effort and numbers. As he made his way back up the road to the school grounds it occurred to him that a year spent, for want of a better word, underground in a constant fog of Dementors, cut off from support may well have altered his perspective drastically. He was beginning to remember what it was like before when he'd made this journey with pockets full of Honeyduke's or Zonko's products, tagging along behind Seamus and Dean.

It was actually a lot easier to walk than he remembered, maybe the longer strides helped or that he had lost the baby fat he'd carried long after it was considered cute. Or maybe it was just that he had made the journey so many times in the last month that his muscles remembered each bump in the terrain, each tree root, each corner and left him to think about other things, the best way to repot a venomous tentacular or a really interesting cloud or the more likely feel of Luna's warm skin against his own.

He'd been working rebuilding greenhouses, repotting plants and soothing stressed out herbs for weeks. He'd arrive and Professor Sprout would put him to work with an "Ah Longbottom" and a squint as if she was vaguely surprised by how much he had grown and did not remember that she had only seen him the day before. He liked the work even the acrid smell of dragon dung was growing on him. He liked the muttered complaints about whatever useless former herbology student had turned up and walked backwards into the Devil's Snare or managed to dislodge their earmuffs as they potted the Mandagora. He liked to roll up his sleeves and feel the back of his neck sweat. He liked that Hogwarts was beginning to feel safe again.

Some days he ran into Seamus who worked often enough on the grounds rebuilding the covered bridge. It seemed an odd thing for him to be doing but Seamus only shrugged, gave a wry smile and said something about "Buildin' back up whatcha brought low".

On the days when they were there together they ate lunch side by side in the Great Hall like they had for years. Seamus had always been covered in the black marks of some spell backfire or the other so when the dirt clung to the sweat on his skin from levitating beams into place it felt comfortably familiar. Seamus didn't talk as much as he used to. It made Neville feel like he should fill in the silence with chatter like Lavender and Pravati did not that long ago. It wasn't a shock that he was useless at it. When he tried to do these things he became all the more aware of the kind of effort involved even though Lavender had done so with no obvious exertion at all. He had a desire to say so to Seamus but he felt that talking about Lavender crossed some unspoken line.

The last time she'd come up in conversation Seamus had spoken like he was talking about two entirely different people. He had told him about how Lavender, one night in the hammocks, in a fit of grand romance had proposed coming to Ireland, meeting his Mam, learning to ride horses… when the war was over….and he'd been 'sure, sure, you do that' with the fullest of intentions to ditch her as soon as the Hogwarts Express steamed into King's Cross. Neville couldn't work out if Seamus felt guilty, relieved, proud or regretful about any of it or why indeed he was telling the story at all. He'd made awkward noises until Seamus had changed the subject. Lavender had not been mentioned again until the memorial service and he was damn certain he wouldn't be the one to bring her up again.

"Ah Longbottom," Professor Sprout said when he entered Greenhouse number 1. He continued to roll up his sleeve but smiled at the predictable greeting.

"Professor," he nodded. "Where do you need me today?"

"Ergh, base of Ravenclaw Tower the Mandrakes we dropped on those sons of dementors were supposed to be repotted by now but some fool student didn't get them all and if we don't get them before they're adolescents they'll be an absolute bugger to get out."

"Right then, I'll go and have a bit of fun shall I," he said grabbing a pair of fluffy earmuffs from the tray on the potting table.

"Longbottom!" she called before he'd made it out the door. "You'll want to put up some protective charms; they're big enough to knock you out for a day and a half now and McLaggen's about, no practical sense worth a damn that boy."

"Yes Professor," he chuckled, plenty of Professors had said the same of him but never Professor Sprout. He shoved a pair of large leather gloves in his back pocket.

It was lunch time before he'd got the remaining mandrakes into pots and back to the greenhouses. It was lunch time before he thought about Luna again and the appointment she'd made at St Mungo's with one of the names that Neville treated with suspicion even though they were written in the copperplate hand of his Gran.

He didn't like St Mungo's and he didn't like Luna going there. Luna was everything St Mungo's wasn't and he wanted her to stay that way. Any which way he put that particular thought sounded as if he was happy for Luna to go without sleep if it meant that she had to depend on him and so he kept his mouth firmly shut.

The Great Hall wasn't as busy as it had been in the first few weeks of the rebuild. He still failed to notice Seamus eating his lunch with obvious lack of enjoyment at the once proud Gryffindor table. He'd slipped into his normal seat trying to avoid looking at the ceiling that remained an uninteresting ceiling until someone got round to the transfiguration that would make it look like the sky. He was remembering how Hermione had proudly displayed her knowledge on the subject as they had taken their long walk to the sorting hat when there was a cough.

"Pass us the potatoes Nev." There was no mistaking the accent.

"Seamus, Merlin, didn't see you there," he said passing the potatoes.

"Yeah I t'ought not, ya looked lost in t'ought."

"Nothing important, just thinking that they'll need to do the ceiling next. It's not the Great Hall without it."

"Won't ever be like it was. Even with a damn shiny ceiling." Seamus replied stabbing a sausage with such venom Neville felt a little afraid.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Seamus's tone burrowed under Neville's skin. There was something annoyingly familiar in the wizard's attitude.

"Well I dunno Finnegan," he spat back. "Fifty or so people we knew quite well are dead, they died righ' here. Including your sorta girlfriend and before that we watched a place we called home and thought was safe become a livin' nightmare. I'd say none of us are alrigh'."

"Yeah well what's it to ya?"

"The way I see it we're all family now!" Neville threw the statement back at Seamus taking sick comfort in watching his freckled face blanch. The man obviously hadn't been too drunk to forget his words in the Hog's Head. Neville took a deep breath. He started again trying to sound calmer. "We've all had a shit time of it but I reckon you keep pushin' it down and it's going to get worse before it gets better. I dunno if you wan' to talk about it and I'm not sure I'd be much good at it but… Oh you know wha' I'm sayin'."

Seamus gestured dismissively at Neville with the part of his sausage still attached to his fork, his elbows on the table, and his eyes for a moment a little wild. "Lovegood's rubbin' off on you." Seamus lifted his chin defiantly as he pushed back at Neville in the one place he knew would set him off.

"From where I stand that's a fuckin' brillian' thing. I was havin' a good day Seamus Finnegan an' then you had to go and fuck it up!" he yelled slamming his plate back onto the wooden table. He rarely swore when he did he was aware it sounded much more intense than the random swear words that littered Ron or Seamus's speech. He got up from his seat. He didn't like that Seamus had set him off. The Irish wizard hadn't even said anything particularly offensive. It was the attitude of sullen refusal to ask for help that was making Neville itch with frustration and anger. The din of the Great Hall had lowered around Neville's outburst.

"Sit your arse back down," Seamus replied.


	32. The heart to heart shite

Neville hovered in the space between sitting and walking away.

"Your arse, sit it down. Everyone's lookin' at you and your drama." Seamus said in a low growl. He was right. It would only get more embarrassing if he walked out of the hall, especially now that he'd hesitated. He sat back down without looking up; it was enough that he could feel their eyes on him. He pushed his hair back from his face attempting to shake off the anger and embarrassment. "A bloke has a right to be in a foul mood without you jumpin' up his arse," Seamus said hunching over the table so that Neville would be the only one to hear it. The hum of the hall rose and levelled out again.

"Yeah and a bloke has the right to fall in love without you pointing it out to entire pubs worth of people, so I say we're even."

"Love? It's love now is it? I thought it was just a chance to get your end away."

"There's thin ice Finnegan and then there's what you're walking out onto." Neville scowled, he'd walked into the jibe but Seamus was always willing to push things just that bit further.

"Ah you always did have more of an honourable streak than the rest of us." Seamus shook his head, an expression Neville couldn't read passed across his face

"I actually care about Luna, you jumped up little…"

"Yeah, yeah, a second ago it was 'love'?" Seamus flicked his hands over the unfinished insult more interested in the answer to his question than whatever diminutive vermin Neville was going to compare him to.

"I don't have to discuss this with you." He moved his vegetables around his plate no longer hungry.

"No, and I don't have to discuss what's been screwin' with me mind with you. But we're family." Neville looked up from his plate in time to catch one of Seamus's wry smiles. "So information will be provided in exchange for information… good information mind." He tapped his index finger against the table as if marking the point.

"That's your definition of family is it? Sounds more like a Death Eater trial."

"Sounds like family to me." Seamus shrugged as he leant back from the table looking far more relaxed than he had been when Neville had arrived. Neville couldn't help but feel it was at his expense.

"I'm not sure I want to be in this family," he grumbled.

"There ya go again, like ya have a choice."

"How about you discuss the long list of what's wrong with you with Dean and I'll keep my information to myself."

"Well that would be a good plan and all Neville but Dean wasn't there for most of it. You were." Dean had said that Seamus only wrote about girls and Quidditch. It had at the time seemed at odds with the clearly mourning man who had stood before them at the memorial service but for months now nothing people did had made much sense to Neville.

"You weren't too keen on talking to anyone a few minutes ago."

"That was before I knew ya had somet'ing to bargain with."

"Why is it always me?" Neville said to himself, rubbing at his temple with palm of his hand.

"'Cause some t'ings never change no matter how old or heroic we get," Seamus supplied.

"It'll go quicker if I don't put up a fight won't it?"

"That's the way," Seamus grinned toothily

"Fine, what is it you want to know?" he said resigned.

"Ya told her yet?"

"No, Yes. No."

"T'has to be one or the other Nev."

"No then."

"But you've tried ta?" Seamus asked.

"No. I know how this bargaining thing works. You got your piece of information; it's your turn to cough up something."

"Well I'm not talkin' here… if we're gonna do the heart to heart shite we need to be buildin' somet'ing or blowin' somet'ing up."

"Honestly?" he asked dumfounded by the sheer effort involved in getting Seamus to talk about something that was clearly bothering him.

"Unless ya feel like playing Quidditch?"

"No I am not getting on a broom. Even for family," he said resolutely.

"You'll tell Voldemort where to get off but ya still won't get on a broom, Merlin, ya crack me up." Seamus scratched at the stubble along his jaw line. He snickered a little at the many contradictions of Neville Longbottom but it sounded oddly tired for something he claimed to be so amusing.

"Brooms don't like me."

"Nor did Voldemort if I recall correctly," Seamus answered pushing his plate away.

"I'll tell the broom where to get off too if you like," he replied in a matter of fact tone.

"Come on then, there's a big hole that needs me ta make it," the shorter wizard pushed back from the table as he spoke.

Seamus was wearing work trousers of hard wearing material that may have formerly been navy blue but now had faded and been replaced with stains and dirt eradicating any vestige of the original colour. His wand was sticking out the back of his back pocket and his t-shirt bunched up at the point where it rubbed exposing his skin. It was really only the lack of a Gryffindor tie that made him look all that different from his school uniform. Seamus's clothing always seemed to take on an air of crumpled, good natured uncleanliness as soon as they covered his body. Seamus scratched his upper back as he walked across the court yard, his arm bent at the elbow above his head.

"Down the other end of the ravine. I gotta make some new holes for the supports," he said without turning back. Neville jogged a moment to catch up.

"And I should be there while you're doing that?" he asked warily.

"We'll ya were there when it went up in the first place."

"And barely got out alive, thanks." Seamus only shrugged. Neville remembered waiting on the bridge hoping that Seamus could do what he said he could do, the ridiculous thumbs up the only reassurances he could get out of the Irishman.

Most of the clock tower had been rebuilt and the fountain was back in the centre of the courtyard though the sculpture of the bird of prey killing a snake had yet to be repaired. Luna had said it was a reference to either Rowena Ravenclaw's torrid affair with Salazar Sytherin or the coat of arms of Mexico. Neville hadn't known which theory was stranger.

The thing was Seamus was right; he had been there for most of it and Dean hadn't. When Luna was taken and then Ginny had to flee with her family, Neville had come to rely on the Irish wizard more than anyone else in Dumbledore's Army. In a way Seamus had probably come to rely on him too. With Dean gone Seamus had lost his anchor for that monstrous seventh year acting more reckless than he'd ever done before. At one point Seamus had seemed entirely made of bruises.

Beyond the court yard they walked down the remaining portion of the bridge, Seamus's easy swagger keeping him side by side with Neville. They didn't speak again until they reached the end of the court yard half. The last time Neville had been here he'd been hung off the end of this damn thing. He looked down, thank Merlin it had been too dark to see that far down the last time he'd been there. He suddenly felt all the more respect for Seamus hanging off those beams in the dark like a clabbert performing his pyrotechnical magic with such confidence.

There was a rope ladder tied to the remaining bridge to enable descent into the ravine without the need to resort to broom sticks. Seamus had already started his descent, assuredly swinging himself on to the ladder like he'd done it many times before. Neville had no choice but to follow. They were almost to the bottom when he heard Seamus say "I wasn't in love with Lav."

The ladder swung abruptly as Seamus jumped off it. Neville stopped, waiting for it to still before he continued down the six or so rungs he needed to be on the ground. "Er, right, okay," he called down.

"I could have… I didn't want ta be."

"Right," he said again when he made it to the ravine floor. Seamus watched him waiting for him to say something intelligent. He almost wanted to explain that that wasn't a possibility. "And that was a bad thing?" he asked.

_**Hello readers. Well we have as many reviews as we have chapters! Go us (That is until this is posted.) Thank you to Blue and Epic and trpotter24 who have reviewed recently. Reviewers you rock. Writing is a lonely pursuit and you make it possible for us to not feel like we are just throwing words into an abyss. So if you're reading and you hate it, or you're reading and you want to hug Neville ('cause who doesn't) or you're reading and you suddenly realise what the thing with the Mexican coat of arms is a reference to and want to share with the rest of the readers please write. I'd love to hear from you really I would.**_


	33. A hole in the earth

Seamus tapped his index finger against the side of his nose twice and then pointed it at Neville. He seemed to enjoy the inane back and forth he'd forced them both into altogether too much.

"You know I don't care about your problems this much," Neville said knowing, despite the mischievous grin on Seamus's face that was really bugging the hell out of him, it was a lie. He did care. He felt responsible for Seamus in a way he couldn't quite articulate.

"Sure ya do. You've got that serious leader look on ya face. So I repeat, you've tried ta tell the fair Miss Lovegood your feelin's?" Seamus started walking towards the far end of the ravine. It was dusty and not a little warm with the sun still high in the sky.

"Yes," Neville answered stubbornly. Seamus turned to him continuing to walk only now doing so backwards. He grinned. The grinning was taking on a manic hue.

"It's gonna take a lot longer if ya keep answering like that." Neville rounded his shoulders and yielded.

"Yes, I tried. I did it, but only once she was asleep."

"She was asleep? Ya told her in the pub?"

"No not in the pub," he confessed.

"What have you been doing Longbottom?" he was torn between answering to put a stop to the needlessly filthy thoughts currently parading through Seamus's mind and holding back to get Seamus to talk. It felt like holding Luna's honour to ransom. But, he decided, Luna did not want him blundering around all misguided chivalry and personal outrage and she might well have done the same thing if she thought it would be of help.

"It's your turn now and you know it."

"Fine. What do ya want ta know?"

"I want to know what's getting at you but I reckon I'm not going to get a straight answer to that one so just tell me why it's a bad thing that you didn't love Lavender."

"You're getting better at this," Seamus said smudging dirt across his forehead with the back of his forearm.

"It takes me a bit but I always get there in the end. Now answer the question."

"I don't think it was ta start with but it is now."

"Now that she's dead you mean?"

"Nah, now that I'm covered in dust and blowing holes in this hillside." Neville chose to ignore the clear sarcasm.

"Well surely that's not a bad thing. If you'd loved her it would have been much worse now, wouldn't it?" Neville asked trying to understand. Seamus kept walking but something in his eyes grew cold and suddenly closed off. Neville took it that it was his turn to offer up a sacrifice to the gods of vulnerability.

"Luna hasn't been sleeping. Not since…" He gestured to the ripped apart bridge and the remnants of the battle. "Since I found out I've been staying with her. It seems to help."

"Stayin' with her, while she sleeps?"

"Yeah, she sleeps, I sleep. It helps a little."

"Ya sleep together?" Seamus looked scandalised.

"Seamus you and Lavender were discovered twisted around each other in those bloody hammocks enough times!" He'd asked Susan and Hannah to keep some of the younger kids away from the hammocks that Seamus and Lavender were often caught in. Susan had laughed at his concern until she'd realised he was serious, and then she'd demanded to know why it was her job to look mother the first and second years and why he hadn't asked Ernie or Terry to do it. Hannah had said she'd much rather keep the first and second years away from the Seamus and Lavender display than answer any more questions that came up when they heard the sounds that came from those particular hammocks. And yet it was easier to ask Susan to mother the eleven and twelve year olds than it was to ask Seamus to knock it off. There was something off kilter in a world where he felt less comfortable telling Seamus and Lavender to stop groping each other in front of children than performing crowd control.

"Yeah but that was me," he raised his eyebrows as if to declare himself a god of all things that please women. "You on the other hand, and Lovegood, well who'd have thought it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Seamus stopped dead. There was nothing remarkable to Neville's eyes in the place he'd decided to stop. Further ahead large beams were sunk into holes that Seamus must have blown deep into the earth. They held there, at an angle, hovering in space against the laws of gravity but not of magic. It was just as dusty with just as much sparse undergrowth as everything they'd passed up until then.

"Don't take offence now. I only meant that, well, this is me being candid now, even if you've become great at the whole leading us in ta battle thing ya still seemed a little terrified of the fairer sex. I always thought a girl would have ta be a tad forceful ta get past all your dithering. Lovegood's a lot of things, a lot of good things Nev, but forceful is not one of them."

"Well perhaps I'm not who you think I am," he answered thinking that Seamus had actually got him pretty spot on. With a flash of clarity he realised it wasn't Seamus who had got him spot on after all. It had been Lavender Brown who had curled up inside Seamus's hammock on those nights when a lack of human contact was too much to bear and discussed each member of the army quietly and at length because sleep wouldn't come for either of them. Seamus had only needed to 'hmm' and 'ahhh' in the right places. Seamus looked him up and down.

"That may have been true enough once but I think I have ya bang ta rights now."

"Nothing's going on," Neville pushed back at the memory of the sounds that had come from those hammocks. "Yeah alright stuff is going on, but not at night, not when she needs…" he felt his eyebrow bunch with the effort of explaining.

"You're in love with the girl. Stuff better be goin' on."

"Merlin, Seamus! No! That's not how it works. I'd love Luna even if she never touched me again. She needs me so I'm there but if she didn't, if everything was alright…. Well I'd probably still be dithering. Because she deserves perfect not clumsy groping and I… I want her to have that."

"Aye and there's the rub me friend," said Seamus sadly as he crouched down in the dirt pulling two vials from his many pockets, "there's the rub."

"And that means what?"

Seamus pulled the cork out of one vial with his teeth. Neville winced; Seamus did not seem to be taking necessary precautions with his explosive occupation. He added the liquid from the other vial to it. The liquid shimmered in the sunlight and quickly turned from a flat blue to an opalescent green. Seamus stoppered the new liquid with the cork from his teeth.

"I didn't love Lav."

"Yeah, you've said that."

"I thought, ah well; a bit of foolin' around never hurt anyone. And by Merlin she was a looker." Seamus continued to work; pulling his wand from his back pocket he silently made a four inch hole in the hard ground. He inserted the vial and pulling a new opaque vial from another pocket gently inserted it into the hole next to the first. "It would be easy ta love a girl like that," for a moment there was a softness in his voice. "But why would you want ta be in love when you are nearly eighteen and there are millions o'girls and the world's explodin'," his words ran ahead again.

"I dunno Seamus, 'cause it's not the kind of thing you decided to do. It just happens," he shrugged Seamus might as well be asking him the meaning of life. For a moment the shorter wizard squinted up at him his blue eyes flashing in the sunlight.

"Yeah, I reckon for you that's the way it goes. There's nothing underhanded about you Longbottom."

"And there's something underhanded about you?" Neville watched as Seamus replaced some of the earth over the vials. He did not look up again as he answered.

"I reckon there is, yeah."

"Because you didn't love Lavender?" Neville crossed his arms across his chest tucking his hands into his armpits.

"An' she deserved just as much of those rainbows an' rose petals an' crap as ya reckon Lovegood does."

Neville hadn't said anything about rainbows and rose petals and Seamus's persistence in calling Luna 'Lovegood' in a mildly dismissive tone was irritating him but not half as much as the feeling they were scratch around the edge of something rather than going for the heart of it.

"That can't just be it Seamus. It can't just be that you didn't love her. Was she in love with you? Did you do something to her?" Seamus looked affronted.

"No I did not do something to her! What do ya take me for?" Seamus stood up and started walking away at a brisk pace. Neville watched him go uncertain what to do next; a little afraid he may have accidently accused his close friend of…

"Are ya coming or what? I'd have thought by now you'd know what those things are like when they go off too close ta ya," he called over his shoulder. Neville followed. About fifteen feet back Seamus stopped and crouched down. He beckoned for Neville to join him. "I'll set it off and then you get the shield charm up. Quickly." Seamus sounded decisive and professional. Neville aimed his wand. Seamus wordlessly flicked his spiral handled wand in the direction of the fresh mound of earth. A jet of soil, rubble and fire blasted up upwards as Neville yelled.

"Protego. Fianto Duri." The shield charm encased them becoming solid as the dust and rubble fell down upon them. When the last of it had fallen Neville swished his wand ceasing the enchantment silently. They stood back up surrounded by a small circle of unchanged landscape. Neville followed Seamus to the place where he had created his violent mixtures, a round hole sunk deep into the ground looking dark brown against the surrounding sun scorched earth. Seamus nodded, seeming happy with the outcome. He made to move off again. Neville grabbed his forearm.

"Seamus. Wait. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply… I" Seamus merely shrugged.

"I didn't love her Neville. She shoulda been loved, really loved, before she died. I shoulda been writin' her sonnets not spending all me time trying ta get in ta her knickers."

"You can't make yourself love someone."

"She was an amazin' girl… real passionate… nah not just that stuff… about everythin', about people an' places an' experiences. An' she was funny, so funny, when she was angry… She could get me to do pretty much anyt'ing by starin' in ta me eyes and I know she thought it was all about her boobs but it wasn't… I coulda loved that girl if I'd wanted too." Seamus looked haunted staring into the hole he had made in the earth.

"You didn't know she was going to die."

"Nah. Still shoulda been… she deserved better."

"Lavender knew what she was doing Seamus. We all grew up a fair bit this last year. She wasn't the same silly, clingy girl…" the words just hung there like a callous epitaph. There was a buzz of insects and Neville felt sweaty and awkward staring down at Seamus's work. Seamus shook himself as if shaking off the memory of Lavender.

"Yeah well she never got the chance ta stop people thinkin' of her like that and I didn't help now did I?" He kicked out at a nearby rock as he spoke still not looking up at Neville. They stood in silence for a moment.

"I think you did care a lot more about her than you told yourself you did," Neville said softly. Seamus gave a half-hearted shrug.

"She still went ta her grave thinkin' she was just a bit of fun," he didn't say he agreed with Neville.

"Finnegan, you didn't decide women were harder for me to deal with than Death Eaters, Lavender Brown did," he said firmly. Seamus looked up a confused smirk on his lips. "A girl like that she knows you're not going to ditch her when the Hogwarts Express gets back to Kings Cross. She just knows."

"I didn't love her," he repeated like it was a meditation on guilt.

"Alright, you didn't love her but you didn't use her either. Lavender didn't die the kind of girl that gets used." Seamus's blue eyes narrowed.

"There's another hole that needs doing," he answered.

"You know you probably need some ground cover down here," Neville answered tired by the emotional effort and finding comfort in the one thing he knew well. "You know plants? To stop erosion." Beside him Seamus chuckled.

"Thank Merlin, ya are still Neville Longbottom. You were getting too knowing there for a moment."

"Maybe Luna has rubbed off on me a bit," he sighed as they walked.

"You should tell her. Properly."

"Sometimes… it's right there, like it's sitting in my mouth and if I open it, it will come rushing out."

"That just sounds weird, don't tell her that," said Seamus wryly

"Thanks."

"Ah go on the worst that can happen is she laughs at ya and says she t'inks of you like a brother."

"I hadn't thought of that possibility yet, I'm so glad I told you about this," said Neville flatly. Until now the horrors of what could happen when he told Luna clearly how he felt had remained faceless and nameless happily swallowed up by the larger more pressing fears about her safety and health.

"Ha Nev, she doesn't t'ink of you like a brother. No one looks at their brother like that," Seamus gave him a shove as though reassurance could only be given if accompanied by a little violence.

"I told her I wanted to take her out. Do the proper things you do when you're with someone. Thing is I haven't got the slightest clue how to do that… It just came rushing out all at once."

"Well that's why ya have a dashing, charming, often underestimated second in command." Seamus ran his dirty hands through his hair.

"You're right Ginny will know what to do!" Neville replied.

"Aw go screw yourself Longbottom."


	34. Gold Paint

Seamus blew another similarly shaped hole in the ground beneath the old covered bridge. They did not speak again about the guilt, anger and pain that had taken root in their minds. The energy to do so had been expended and neither he nor Neville wished to continue exhausted and exposed into those dark holes.

When other witches and wizards returned from lunch to start the positioning of large wooden beams Neville returned to the greenhouses. He'd even found time to discuss the possibility of erosion controlling plants in the ravine with Professor Sprout, suggesting something defensive should there ever be a repeat of the battle, before the Professor squinted at him and told him to go home and get some rest .

But home was not the place he wanted to be. He wanted to be with Luna. So he apparated on to the hill besides the Lovegood's rook. Luna was sitting on the steep grey steps that led to her front door. Her hair was loose only just pulled back off her face. Her feet were bare beneath pale pants that only came to below her knees. He took a moment to be motionless in the afternoon sun and watch her as she swirled paintbrushes around inside a tin. She was safe and she was still Luna.

She looked up and saw him watching. She seemed unsurprised by his presence. He waved awkwardly.

"Hello Neville," she said as he approached. "The mural is almost finished."

"Wicked!" he said.

"You want to know about my visit to St Mungo's don't you?"

"Ah yeah…" he said a little guiltily. "But first I've wanted to do something all day."

"Is it to run around with your shoes off?" she said raising her pale eyebrows.

"Um no," he said looking at his shoes "I'm pretty sure the grass would die if I did that now." He reached out pulling her gently from her seat. "I wanted to do this," he said cupping her cheek and kissing her softly.

"Oh," she said.

"I missed you."

"You are very dusty," her nose wrinkled ever so slightly.

"Seamus made me stand around while he blew things up," he shrugged.

"Made you?" she asked tilting her head.

"That's the only way I can think to explain it."

"Seamus does have a way of getting people to do things they wouldn't normally do," she agreed taking her seat again on the stair and tipping multi-coloured water from her tin.

"I reckon he just irritates them till they give in," he said watching the water run down each stair adding colour to the grey.

"No," she said wistfully "he makes it seem as if life would be much bigger if you tried it his way."

"Bigger?"

"Yes. Some people live small, neat, controlled lives. Seamus does not. He makes it seem as if trying it his way would make you happier." She organised her paintbrushes as she spoke, first in order of size and then by colour. What she didn't add but was there in her voice too was that even if Seamus could make it seem that way it was not necessarily true. Sometimes small, neat, controlled lives were just as happy as the big lives others lived.

"Not right now he doesn't," he said trying to remember back to the Seamus of a year ago.

"He isn't doing so well?" she looked up at him. He searched her face for signs that she was again sleepless or anxious, for some sign that St Mungo's hadn't changed her.

"He isn't."

"And you helped." It wasn't a question even if it should have been.

"I don't know that I did."

"I know," she said standing back up holding her paintbrushes in a small bundle in her hand.

"I'll have to take your word for it." Standing on the stair she was about level with him. He tucked a curled hand under her chin running his thumb across her jaw line. "You have gold paint on your chin."

"Oh yes the painting, do you want to see it Neville?" she asked flashing him the kind of smile that made him feel warm.

"Of course I do," he answered automatically. He'd tried not to worry about her because she had made it very clear that he should not but all the trying in the world had not stopped the churning in his stomach.

He followed her up the spiral stairs in the centre of the house. Through the kitchen of bright primary colours and the smell of some horrible herbal distillation though the living room that had started filling up with books and papers the instant the house was rebuilt and seemed in no danger of stopping and finally to Luna's orange room on the third floor. The presses made the floor vibrate like the house was the oversized heart of a giant creature.

The very first thing he saw when she stopped in front of him was a painting of the sheet Hermione had asked them to sign that first day in the Hog's Head. Above her side table a little larger than it had originally been the parchment still looked so very real, like it was when he had signed it. Without much thought he walked towards it gently tracing his signature on her wall. Below his name was Luna's upside down. He remembered being shocked that she was behind him when he turned to pass the quill to the next member and he remembered her bright smile, that she remembered him from the train and that she terrified him. At the very end of the list was Seamus's name added after he'd seen that his mother's beliefs that Dumbledore was losing it and Harry was a liar were unfounded. All their names looked so innocent now. They really hadn't known what they were doing as much as Harry had tried to explain it.

Luna tugged on his sleeve. He turned to see her, a small crease forming between her eyebrows with concern. Perhaps he'd been staring at those names for too long.

"Hermione gave me the list before she left with Ron and Harry. I kept it hidden, but I think that we can stop being hidden now. We can be proud."

"It's beautiful Luna; I never knew a bunch of names could be beautiful."

"Those names are." She smiled at him. "But you haven't seen the main painting yet"

He looked up. On the ceiling above her white iron bed was Hogwarts. The Hogwarts they'd seen from the boats that first night when they'd all been so terrified. It was the castle from their memories, the castle unaffected by the battle and the loss. There was no movement and yet it felt warm and alive in the way happy memories could. It was not the castle that made Neville breathless however it was them. It was Harry, messy hair and glasses, older but not as tired and beaten as he had been. It was Ginny, freckles and bright hair smiling down at them without her red rimmed eyes. It was Hermione and Ron whose hands he could now see were entwined; their painted eyes seemed to twinkle. Each person held their wand by their side, prepared but not fearful. There was another person standing next to them, tall and broad shouldered, he held Godric Gryffindor's sword in his left hand. Suddenly Neville realised the man was him. He saw the small scars on his cheeks and the large feet and the tiny flecks of yellow in his grey green eyes. This was how Luna saw him. He searched the painted face, his face; there was something there, something he'd seen in the mirror above the infirmary sink, behind the blood and dirt, but something less angry.

Beneath the image in tiny writing, curving and linking, in the gold paint she'd splashed on her chin she'd written 'friends' and then beneath that 'this is why we fight'.

"Luna," he said hoarsely. Standing beside him warm and still she slipped her small hand into his.


	35. Neville and yet not Neville

"Neville," she said tentatively giving his hand a little squeeze. "Neville, please sit down you look pale."

"Hmm?" he said forcing himself to look away from the painted figures and from the written words beneath them. He licked his lip as she pushed him towards her bed. He stumbled falling back for an instant against the quilt of Ravenclaw blues and bronzes. "Sorry," he said as he righted himself. "I'm tired I guess, didn't sleep much…" he gestured to Luna's ceiling feeling uneasy about looking back up at the image. "We look… I look…" he searched for the right words.

Luna sat beside him folding her legs behind her on the bed. As he spoke she pulled a light blue cord that hung around her neck out from under her hair. He knew it well, attached to it was her ever present butter beer cork charm. She placed it over his head.

"What's this for?" he asked.

"It keeps away the Nargles."

"I thought they liked mistletoe," he said distractedly his head still full of the painted faces of his friends.

"They do but you looked as if you needed some extra help today. I wouldn't want anything of yours to go missing."

He looked down at the cork; it had some metal pressed into the top of it allowing the cord to be threaded through. He'd never seen Luna without it. It was important to her in a way that belied that it was quite an ordinary cork. It was warm from where it had pressed against her skin. He held on to it feeling her warmth in his hand.

"It's not finished yet. There's still some shadow and depth to put in and Harry's hair still isn't right." He felt dizzy even sitting on her bed steadfastly refusing to look back up at the ceiling.

"It's brilliant Luna. I mean, I don't know what to say, I… we look whole," the last part escaped him without him realising it was how he felt.

"It's going to be alright," she said softly as if he hadn't been talking about her painting at all.

"How was your day?" he asked hoping to distract her from his strange turn.

"My appointment you mean?"

"Yeah."

"It was interesting. Did you know that they've had a traumatic response team set up in St Mungo's since the battle? Hardly anyone has come though. They've seen all the physical injuries and spell damage but everyone from Hogwarts seems to think they can muddle through on their own."

"It's not like we didn't have to before," he said realising as he spoke the words that they sounded much more defensive than he'd meant them to sound.

"No," she said watching him quietly. "But do you think, maybe, that those were very different circumstances?"

"But you're alright? They haven't done anything? They haven't said that you're not alright?" he asked trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

"I had a lovely conversation with the Healer about the possible role of Wrackspurts in the diseases of aging," she said gliding over his questions.

"Um. You did?" Luna often spoke about creatures that only her father and herself believed were real. He did not like the idea of a stranger hearing her tales and assuming that Luna was delusional. Luna was Luna her strange beliefs were part of her and the idea of someone trying to take that part of her away made him angry. But you couldn't tell Luna that there were some people in the world it would be more prudent to not inform of the existence of Nargles and Wrackspurts and Crumple-horn skornacks or whatever they were called.

"Yes, Healer Meeks said that looking at disease from a different perspective can often lead to breakthroughs. He had a very open mind."

"Did he say anything about the sleeping?"

"Yes."

"You don't want to tell me?"

"There isn't much to tell yet Neville."

"Yeah, alright," he said

"Apparently this is one area of healing that crosses over with Muggle Medicine."

"Muggles? Like Hermione's Mum and Dad?"

"I think they work with teeth," she said thoughtfully.

"Oh." Images of Muggles growing human teeth in jars with flashes of that electricity stuff flickered though his mind. "But you'll get better right?"

"You're worried I won't?" she asked in return. People go into St Mungo's and they never come out, he thought, they don't get better.

"I want you to be happy Luna," he said quietly.

"I am happy."

"Not the complicated happy." He shook his head firmly.

"It will take a little bit of time. It will be alright," she said again. He looked at her properly for the first time since she'd pushed him onto her bed. He saw her expression shift from studying him to a bright smile. She was alright. She looked a little tired but no more tired than he assumed he looked. She still had her large expressive grey eyes and pale surprised eyebrows, she still had her dreamy way of talking and her radish shaped earrings. She was alright. He licked his bottom lip.

"Seamus says he knows a restaurant in London that's 'dead romantic'. It's French apparently that makes a difference."

"And this was why Seamus was upset?"

"What? No? I, uh, that was something else. Uh, I told Seamus that I wanted to take you somewhere nice. He thinks he's the best person to advise me. I'm not so sure," he added darkly. She got up and put her paintbrushes into a mug on her side table so that they splayed out like a Siberian weasel fur bouquet.

"Then it can be an experiment. My mother use to experiment all the time," she said offering a knowing half smile before returning to sit beside him.

"An experiment?"

"Oh yes Neville, extraordinary things can happen when you experiment," she exclaimed. And terrible things, he thought. He did not want to be the person who reminded Luna of that particular outcome. He wanted this night to be perfect not experimental. But she was excited and she glowed when she was excited so he thought better of telling her so. He looked down at his hands. They were still dirty from the potting of mandrakes. Soon they'd be entirely made of callouses.

"I got my welcome package this morning. I start Auror training in London on the 17th of August. I won't be around much after that."

He'd arrived wanting to tell Luna first about the expressions the Mandrakes pulled when you yanked them from the earth and then about Seamus and how he could blow a column of ground into nothingness with a few potions and a lot of instinct. He'd wanted to make her laugh. He'd wanted to touch her skin and feel her lips. He'd wanted to ask her to dinner in a French restaurant off Diagon Alley and tell her that he missed her sleeping in his arms. He'd wanted to hear about everything she'd done while she'd been away from him and then he'd wanted to tell her that he was going to London and he was going to miss her terribly. He wanted her to tell him that she would miss him terribly too. Something had gone wrong when he'd looked at those paintings and now everything was coming out wrong. He hadn't even got to tell her about the mandrakes.

"Yes I suppose so," she said.

"We haven't talked about what happens when I go to London and you go back to Hogwarts."

"Did we need to?"

"Ah, I thought we did but if you don't think so I…" he mumbled.

"I usually go with Daddy to Kings Cross Station to catch the Hogwarts Express. The last few years I've sat with you and Ginny but I suppose now it will just be Ginny. Ginny is very nice though so I'm sure it will be alright. We'll both miss you of course. Oh Neville remember when you covered Harry in stinksap?"

He stared blankly at her.

"Oh," she said her eyes growing larger with understanding. "You meant when we can't see each other every day."

"Yeah."

"Faith, Neville," she said before leaning forward and kissing him.

We need a plan Luna, he wanted to say. I can't keep operating on faith alone I'm no good at it. When it had been the three of them, Ginny, Luna and Neville it had worked. Ginny always had a plan and Luna, the sudden creative leaps of genius and a heap of faith and he, well, he did the grunt work. But that wasn't quite right. He had had faith, faith in Harry, in Dumbledore's Army, faith in Dumbledore. What he didn't have faith in was that he knew what he was doing here. He didn't have faith that he could be the man in Luna's painting.

Luna's painting was Neville and not Neville. He was a Neville who didn't need a plan because he was good and honest and brave. He was a Neville who didn't need to try every day to be those things, who didn't need to work twice as hard as everyone else to get there. Didn't she see that all that trying and hours of work were just as much him as the moments when he'd said 'Sod it all. If we are going down we'll go down fighting.' Or did she think he would get to a point where he didn't need to try and to work, just like Harry wouldn't look so tired and Ginny's eyes would stop being red.

The Neville in the painting had his face but he didn't have his doubts and it made his head spin to look at him.

He didn't feel the kiss. All day he'd been wanting to kiss this sweet girl and his head was too full now to feel it.

"Right…" he said standing up, "I'm going to look at the dirigible plum before I leave. Good. Alright." He left her room without looking back. He felt as if his own body had stopped belonging to him as he climbed down the stairs and out the front door.

He looked at the plum tree, breathing heavily as he ran his hand down the trunk over knots and twists. Parts of the tree had begun to die where the damage had been too much. But the whole tree struggled on a few branches even baring some of its gravity defying fruit. If the whole tree was to survive though the damaged branches would need to be excised so that the healthy parts could flourish again. It wouldn't be the same tree but perhaps it would be a stronger one in the end. He reached for his wand.

"Neville?" He hadn't heard her follow him down the stairs.

"Uh, I have to remove some of the branches they're dying and if I don't take them they'll slowly kill the rest of the tree."

"Oh," she said watching him from the steps.

"Do you have any pumpkin juice?" he asked as he cauterised the first stump.

"Are you thirsty?"

"What? No. Sorry. Dirigible plums like the enzymes in pumpkin juice. We can pour it into the soil, give it a little help. It's had a rough time of it." Another branch fell away as Luna returned to her kitchen.

When Luna arrived with a glass of pumpkin juice he'd finished his work. The dirigible plum now looked wounded but able to recover. She handed him the glass. He poured it into the soil in a semi-circle around the base of the tree.

"She'll survive?" Luna asked.

"Should do… she's a fighter"

"Then you saved her." Luna was closer now she'd come down off the stairs and was standing beside him examining the slightly lopsided tree. "Mummy and Daddy planted her when I was born. She is my birthday tree," she said as if starting one of Beedle the Bards tales. "Neville," she said turning to him her tone changing with his name, "you're a fighter too, it will be alright."

"Faith again," he said tiredly wrapping her in his arms.


	36. Not that shirt

He'd sent Kenneth with a note yesterday morning. It felt odd to be writing to Luna again, though he'd written her every holidays since Dumbledore's Army had thrown them together.

Luna had written first. His Gran had raised an eyebrow as she'd handed him the unassuming beige envelope with Luna's handmade wax seal, made at various times by pressing a shell, a leaf, an oddly shaped stone or once her own thumb into the cooling wax. It was the first time anyone from school had written to him other than the usual lists of textbooks and uniform requirements. Over his breakfast the little letter had given him a small kick as if he'd just been told he was magical enough to go to Hogwarts again. Inside Luna had made no mention of why she'd chosen to write to him or that it was the first time she had done so. Luna started in the middle and expected him to catch up. Though she still terrified him he had wanted to do so. Still if the letter had not been begun 'Dear Neville,' he'd have worried it had be misdirected.

He had written back immediately but it had taken him a few days to send it, held back part in fear that he would seem too eager and in part that he had nothing of interest to say. It had been some time now since those letters had flown back a forth between Yorkshire and Devon, Sweden and Yorkshire and at one time even Devon and Blackpool. Now Kenneth stayed put whilst Neville went back and forth instead.

He'd pressed an ivy leaf from the garden into the note before sealing it with the Longbottom seal which was far less interesting than the weaving, swirling shapes that heralded Luna's letters. He'd regretted the silly gesture as soon as Kenneth was out of reach. The note itself was short.

Luna,

Friday night you and I have reservations at Baiser de la Veela in London at 7pm. I'll call at yours at 6.30pm. Attire is apparently formal. Let me know if this doesn't work.

Yours,

Neville

The whole thing felt all too much like playing grownups. It had been easier to order his friends into dangerous situations than it was to… his grandmother would call it courting he supposed and he honestly had no other word for it. He did want this night to be perfect, a way of showing her how much he felt for her, a perfect night to hold on to when he went to London and she back to Hogwarts.

She glided over the return to school like water striders did on still water but he knew she had not returned to the school since the battle was done. She had, of course, had a father to help and a home of her own to rebuild but he had not forgotten that still and pearlescent Luna the night after the battle. That she did not blink when their separation had been mentioned had not stopped him worrying about the memories that would keep her ever vigilant in the night. He could not see Professor McGonagall allowing him to hover round the Ravenclaw girl's dormitories in case he was needed.

So for one night he promised himself it would be perfect and he would be wonderful and Luna would have another happy memory to number against the pile of ones that she did not speak of.

He knew that each day he had been working himself to physical exhaustion in the hope that he would slip easily into dreamless sleep. Each night he still awoke with a jolt from a dream of first years contorting from cruciatus curses happily sent from Crabbe's wand, or Luna stoically manhandled from the train or finding small uniformed bodies in the courtyard.

Two days ago Seamus had pushed a scrap of parchment across the Gryffindor table with the name and address of the restaurant he'd recommended. He'd winked at Neville but thankfully had said no more.

In the time it had taken Kenneth to get to a hill in Devon and a bright orange room at the top of a tower, in the time it had taken for a short note to be read twice he felt the Galleon in his pocket heat up. Along the edge the coin read "Yes Neville." He flipped the coin and caught it in his left hand feeling its heat fading. His smile did not.

An hour ago a small grey brown owl had landed on his windowsill and given a low whistle. In between his toes and tarsus he held a small missive.

Not that shirt

Neville fed the Finnegan's owl whose fault it was not that his owner was a wanker. He changed the shirt. He'd put a potion in his hair and attempted to make himself less Neville like. Then he had got back in the shower when he realised he looked like he was trying to not look like Neville. He'd contemplated leaving the stubble on his chin rather than risking cutting his face with nervous hands. The certain look of disappointment on his grandmother's face should he leave the house stubbled and slicked back was too much to bear so the stubble went too. He checked that his wand was safely inside his waistcoat for the seventeenth time. His savings went into his coat before he finally left his bedroom.

His Gran had straightened his tie and run her bony hand across his shoulder smoothing its line, before producing from her red handbag several galleons and handing them to him sternly. He wondered, as he thanked her uncomfortably, if she had done the same thing when a young Frank had taken the effervescent, sunny Alice somewhere. He didn't ask. You didn't ask. Not here.

And then in a moment so unexpected and unlikely she had pulled him towards her giving him the briefest of hugs before letting him go. She gave a curt nod and returned to her armchair in the good room. Neville stood for a moment in the entrance way uncertain that it had happened at all.

Arriving at the front of the Lovegood's home he fought down his nerves. From the outside the charcoal grey rook with its fluid curves looked serene in the green Devon hillside but the soft pound and whirl of the presses continued from behind the heavy front door.

Neville was twelve minutes early when he knocked on the door, no longer able to stand self-consciously beyond the steep slate stairs counting minutes so as not to be rude. Only one half of the door opened revealing the top half of Mr Lovegood. The wizard squinted at him, his robes hung haphazardly about his frame as though dressing was his third or fourth priority after informing the world about the existence of the crumple-horned snorkack and the reality of Stubby Boardman's arrest. Though Mr Lovegood had always seemed preoccupied, since his return from Azkaban his preoccupation had taken on an extra layer of perplexion and if he was not fiddling with his presses and articles he was often asleep, a sleep Neville had begun to feel was a way of avoiding rather than resting.

"Yes?" he asked as if he had never seen Neville before in his life.

"Good evening Mr Lovegood," he tried. "It's Neville, Neville Longbottom? I, Uh I'm here to collect Luna."

"Luna?" Mr Lovegood leant over the iron bar holding the bottom half of the door in place. "My Luna?"

"Ah yes," he said as Mr Lovegood closed the door. Neville took a single step back down the stairs. This was not a promising beginning.


	37. You in your new blue dress

Neville took a deep breath, the action inflating his cheeks before he blew the air from the side of his mouth despairingly. The dirigible plum seemed to be recovering at least. He tried to calculate the length of time it was appropriate to stand on the steps before he should knock again. He failed. The fleeting thought that he might very well be found curled up on the steps trying to sleep like he had as a child when the fat lady had refused him entry to the common room distracting him. He intertwined his hands together rubbing at his knuckles delaying for a few moments longer the second attempt to bring Luna to her front door.

The iron studded door swung open on its hinges, both halves moving together. It was Luna. He thanked Merlin and forgot to breath. Luna was wearing blue. For a moment that was all he could articulate.

Luna always looked pretty to Neville, if unconventionally so, with her layers and patterns and colours and the way her hair just waved and curled down her shoulders like she'd never thought to do anything with it. When Luna dressed up Luna tended to dress as if she was shaped like a bell but he'd liked the way when she swayed it looked like she was in the midst of the carol of the bells.

But here and now she stood in a blue dress that came in at her small waist before flaring out over her hips in a circle of blues and ending just below her knees. There were little sleeves that finished just as they touched her pale arms and he could see the cord of her butter beer cork necklace pushed down under the low collar of the dress. Even her hair had been pulled up and away from her face still curling down the back of her neck but twisted or braided or pined in some way girls seemed to understand.

He realised he hadn't said anything when he saw the small uncertain smile on her lips. Luna was never uncertain. "Hey Luna," he said sheepishly.

"Hello Neville," she answered.

"You look… I mean, you are beautiful."

"Ginny did this," she said smoothing down the sides of the skirt. "This is her dress. She said it looked better on me anyway. The dress is lovely but I'm not sure about the shoes. Ginny says I have to wear shoes and they cannot be trainers, even if the trainers have sparkles on them." He looked to where she indicated and there on her feet were a pair of white shoes, her toes peeking out the front of them. They had heals raising her up an inch or so from the ground. Ginny did know what to do.

"Maybe," he said taking her hands to help her down the stairs, "you can kick them off under the tablecloth when we get to the restaurant?"

"Do you think I could?" she asked as if she might need to ask Ginny's permission.

"Depends how long the tablecloth is I suppose."

"You look very nice too Neville, very much like someone who goes to restaurants."

"Ah… thanks?" he said licking his bottom lip and wanting to remove the light grey coat he'd brought with him. They reached the bottom of the steps and he let her hands go. "You know, you might not like the shoes but they do make you a little taller."

"I'm not taller Neville I'm just standing on tip toes."

"Yeah, I meant… It's easier to do this," he reached down and tilting her face upwards kissed her, only noticing that her familiar earrings of dried fruit were missing when his fingertips grazed her earlobe. It made him a little sad that in her eagerness to make Luna up Ginny had lost a little of what made Luna Luna.

"Oh," she said smiling a little. "I still don't like the shoes though."

"I think I can cope without the extra help," he said taking her arm in his to apparate to Diagon Alley from there it would be a short walk to the restaurant.

Baiser de la Veela had not been what he'd expected. There had been white tablecloths and candlelight which after all were supposed to be romantic; at least that's what he'd always thought. The Baiser however was small, full of heavy wooden beams and dark nooks; it felt like dining in a time long ago rather than the modern sophistication he'd imagined when Seamus had suggested it. It was cosy rather than elegant and the way the husband and wife who ran it kept looking their way made him suspect Seamus had told them about this dinner or that it was obvious he had no idea what he was doing. Neither thought had been particularly comforting.

When he looked at the menu to find it was entirely in French he had licked his bottom lip and tried to remember the little French he had from before Hogwarts or had caught from the Beauxbaton's girls cluttering the hallways. Luna from a carefully hidden pocket in the folds of her dress produced her wand and with a small tap his menu translated itself into English. He'd smiled gratefully at the small witch; he would not be eating snails tonight.

Dinner was pleasant, not perfect. He had little appetite so ate little of the rich old fashioned French cuisine. He was glad for it when he did not feel uncomfortably full. Luna for her part was more interested in the desert menu than the bouillabaisse, venison or gruyere soufflé.

He felt his awkwardness dissipate with her conversation which was more a stream of consciousness than the product of someone who censored their thoughts. The candlelight had danced on her skin like firelight had in the Hog's Head, but it was not perfect. He did not know what perfect would look like but he was certain he had not managed it and all too soon he had to return her.

In the darkness outside her home he held on to her well after the discomfort of apparition had subsided. He knew he didn't want to let her go. He didn't want a goodnight kiss and another long night of unhappy sleep and her absence.

Luna kicked off the white heeled shoes and tugged on his arm. "There's something I want to show you."

"What?" he asked

"You'll see," she replied drawing him down the hill opposite to her bedroom window and leaving the shoes far behind her. It was dark even with the moonlight but she seemed to know where she was going. Abruptly out of the grass they came to a low bridge over a little river. Balanced on the balustrades were three old pickle jars and Luna fetching her wand again from her pocket produced a little ball of flame in each one. With the moon the light was now enough to see the wooden bridge over the gently running water. It was enough to see Luna watching him.

"This is my favourite place in all the world," she said spinning gracefully her dress flowing out in a full circle. It was calm here, a certain softness to the world.

"I can see why."

"I'm so glad. It would be very sad if you couldn't." He leaned over the weathered hand rail.

"I could just sit here forever."

"Then do," she said dreamily.

"I'm not sure that would make for the most productive life."

"Then sit a while longer, life can wait… yes?" As she said it he knew that he wanted life to wait. So he stepped off the bridge, settling himself against the grassy bank and balling his grey coat behind him. He loosened his tie and started rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. She grinned as he did so.

"Life can wait," he agreed.

She swayed softly alone on the little bridge. He watched her for a while. It was easy here, whilst they listened to the crickets and let life wait, to be silent. "You move in time with something," he said not having meant it to be out loud.

"Mmm, can't you hear it? The movement of the water, the rhythm in voices of the crickets and the frogs, the breeze moving through the trees, if you listen you can dance to it," her eyes were unfocused as she continued her graceful turn. He listened for a moment and though he didn't hear the music she could hear there was an order to it. She was not moving to silence.

"I thought you didn't like dancing?"

"Why do you think that?"

"You said. Well, you said you wouldn't have minded not dancing if Harry had taken you to the Yule Ball."

"You took Ginny." She gave him a small half smile.

"She was good to me. I stepped on her toes a couple of times but… I reckon we got pretty good at it."

"Was it fun?" she asked curiously for a moment leaning out of the shadows towards him.

"Luna?"

"Yes"

"Would you like to dance?"

"You can't hear the music," she said softly.

"Then you hum. I think I can work it out from there."

She stopped swaying. "You want to dance?"

"I want to dance with you." He stood up drawing her towards him. He settled one hand on her waist and taking her hand in his other, he nodded. "Your hand goes on my shoulder." He could feel her uncertainty as she placed her hand where he'd instructed. The humidity had made their hands damp. She blinked up at him. "You need to hum," he reminded her gently, "I can't make music out of sound like you can."

And she hummed, an odd lilting tune but it had a rhythm and that was all he needed, guiding her back and forth on the bridge before turning gently. And she glowed even as she stepped on his toes in her bare feet. Feeling a little fearless he let go of her waist rolling her in to him and then spinning her back out along the bridge. She laughed as she wobbled unsteadily for a moment. He tugged her back towards him underestimating his pull she collided against him.

"I'm slippery," she said pressing her hand to his sternum.

"It's warm out," he said, "and I'm not the best dancer."

"Oh no, you are a lovely dancer." He hadn't let go of her hand and despite the sticky humidity he felt he could hold her here till morning.

"It's too hot," she said quietly.

"Oh." He released her. She took a step back from him a little more into the shadows cast by the pickle jar lights. Reaching up behind her she unzipped the borrowed dress. It didn't slip from her body like he'd imagined a dress would in those dreams he hadn't wanted to wake from. Instead Luna tugged at the sleeves and wiggled until she could step out of the material. Picking up the blue now shapeless dress from the ground she handed it to him.

He tried to tell himself that the same amount of Luna was showing as if she was wearing a bathing suit but his body did not believe him. He tried to focus on the slight stiffness of the fabric in his hand or the way it reminded him of a robin's egg but his body would not let him.

Luna in moonlight and white cotton underwear eased herself between the balustrading, under the hand rail and into the water below. And Neville stood blankly holding Luna's borrowed dress not daring to move lest it make it unreal.

"Uh Luna? What are you doing?" he called into the darkness.

"Cooling," her lilting voice came back to him.

"Yeah, right. Alright but um…." It's dark. You took your clothes off in front of me. I'm seventeen, I'm a bloke, you do realise that right? I'm not sure I can handle you taking your clothes off in front of me. Do you even know what's in that water? Am I supposed to just stand here and hold your clothes? You took your clothes off in front of me!

She splashed him. Standing in water that came up under her arms she dragged her hand across the surface gaining enough momentum to throw the water right at his chest. When he found her face at the water's edge she stared back innocently. "Luna!"

"Neville!" she smiled.

"Come out of the water."

"Come into the water." She splashed again this time giving him enough warning to throw the dress in front of his face. "You've made Ginny's dress all wet."

"I reckon you did that."

"Oh no," she disagreed, "I took the dress off so it wouldn't get wet. You made it wet."

"Luna!"

"Neville!" she echoed.

Something inside him gave. The frantic energy he'd felt on the end of the covered bridge, he remembered throwing himself forward on the balls of his feet and demanding what army was going to take his school from him. That same energy pushed him off the little bridge as he pulled his waistcoat and shirt over his head, kicking off his shoes and socks and finally his trousers before wading into the murky water to find her.

It was the laughter and splashing that made him grab her, pulling her hands from the dark water he held her wrists above her head preventing any more attacks.

And then because she was there, dewy from the splashing, still giggling and because he noticed there were two small pink bows on the straps of her bra and because the moonlight made her pearlescent he kissed her. Leaning down in waist high water in his pants and nothing else he kissed her and felt her kiss him back.

He let go of her wrists tangling his arms around her feeling the damp slipperiness of her skin. She slid her own arms around him, down his arms and across his chest. He wondered if there was some way he could bring her closer. He heard it, pulling her into him, her small sound of longing.

The next time he opened his mouth the words that had been there for weeks came rushing out.

"I love you."

Luna froze in his arms.

"You don't have to say that," she said.

His arms dropped, his knees made to buckle. "Righ'," he said in a voice that was not his own. Turning in the water he waded back to his clothing. All he could hear was his own heartbeat in his ears.

Stepping on to the bank he turned for half a second. She was still standing in the water. Her eyes full with grief and in that instant she reached out for him. For all the betrayal he felt he could not leave her. Instead of pulling his clothes back on he sunk to the ground, cradling his head in his arms. She moved towards him.

She was damp but soft and warm and she knelt beside him taking his arms from his face. He turned to look at her, her expression thoughtful she ran her fingertips across his brow as though she was attempting to smooth out his hurt. Without another word she slipped her hand behind his neck pulling him towards her and pressing her lips to his.


	38. Into temptation

He was breathing heavily, still she kissed him. It felt as if she gasped with him. Their hot breath travelled between them with feverish kisses. His brow still furrowed with confusion, he reached out for her. He could not prevent his arms from pulling her towards him even as she pulled him towards her. He groaned against her mouth unable to stop the sound of despair before it left him. She twisted, her soft cheek grazing his as she did so. She was crying. The dampness of their skin had hidden the fact until she'd moved. The wetness on her cheeks was struck by the jars' light at an angle.

He did not think as he moved his mouth down her neck, sucking at the supple flesh. He did not think as his hand pushed the strap from her shoulder. He did not think as he felt her hand graze across his collar bone, down the centre of his chest and continue downwards. Thinking now would be too painful.

She was silent but not still. Her hand still held his neck. There was enough pressure that he was sure she was afraid that if she let go he might pull away. Her other hand now moved across his abdomen softly at first and then as he dipped his lips below her collar bone to the exposed swell of her breast she shuddered and clenched his side.

He wanted to push her down against the mess of clothing behind her. He wanted to run is hands across her body as she had done to him, discarding the fabric that thwarted his touch. His own hand that curled around her waist moved lower over her buttock holding for a moment where the curve of it met her thigh.

He felt her fingertips graze the elastic waist of his boxers. For a moment he hesitated, but her insistent fingertips made their way under the fitted waistband. He snatched at her hand.

"Luna. Don't… not if… I can't… I won't be able…" he groaned into her ear. She was unmoving for a moment, her warm fingers trapped inside his own. She nodded against his shoulder. Freeing his neck from her grip she looked back up into his eyes. Her lips parted slightly were darkened by the kissing, her eyes bright. She seemed to understand.

"Then don't," she said simply.

He let go of her hand feeling his breath become ragged. He raised an eyebrow. She leant in close her mouth almost touching his. He closed his eyes unable to make sense of anything that had happened since he'd spun her out along the wooden bridge and made her laugh.

"You don't have to stop," she whispered.

His eyes snapped open. Placing his hand to her cheek he kissed her again putting all the confusion, the pain and the desire into the actions of his lips and tongue. He pulled himself upwards, on to his knees, leaning down over her to continue the kiss. Her hands touched his thighs, moving their way back towards the damp material of his boxers. With his free hand he circled her waist once again leaning her back down over the grass and clothing. Her legs curled out from beneath her as she watched him over her.

Even in the shadowy half-light he could see the flush across her cheeks and chest. The water had made the soft white fabric of her underwear almost transparent. He licked his bottom lip. He traced the outline where a small piece of lace met her breasts. She was so quiet, so watchful, he wanted her to speak, to tell him what to do. He was hard, pushing out against the wet fabric of his boxers. He wanted to push against Luna. The liquid heat had been growing since the first gasping kiss and he was certain he could not hold back for long.

Her hand stroked his abdomen again and he shivered. Without thought he brought his mouth back to her chest his hands pulling at the straps of her bra so that he could touch her without the interference of the soft white cotton and lace. He felt her nipples hard against his calloused hands curiously different from the softness the rest of her.

And then as he licked and pressed his lips to her his hardness pressed into her thigh. She sighed softly beneath him. Taking his hand from her face she moved it between them over the soft rounding of her stomach. He froze, watching her pale features, the way she panted softly as she guided his hand. Her hair loosened from its elaborate knotting spread out around her face on the ground. She arched against him as their hands slid over her knickers. She made that small sound of longing and he could not bear it any longer. His fingers tangled in the elastic tugging at them. She kissed him once again before her own hand reached his boxers mimicking his own struggles. The pad of her hand brushing against the damp head of it, he grunted involuntarily.

The spell, he'd forgotten the spell. If this was happening and oh did he want it to happen, he needed that spell. Shifting to his side, still tangled in the fabric of her knickers and the moistness of her, he reached up to try to pull his wand from the inside of the discarded waistcoat. Luna's hands continued to move sliding his boxer shorts further down his buttocks. Suddenly his hand grasped the familiar cherry wood. Trying to focus as her soft hands moved over his buttocks, he mumbled the spell. It didn't work the subtle change in the air that came from a correctly cast spell did not come. He tried again even as his hips thrust against her.

She let him go and he worried frantically that she'd changed her mind. She kissed his cheek raising her hand up to meet the one still grasping his wand. He felt her smile against him. "It's upside down," she whispered. She shifted the wand in his hand and pulled him down to her as he spoke the words.

She pushed down again between them this time freeing him from the wet boxers. He felt her soft and warm against his bare stiffness. She raised her bottom off the ground for a moment and suddenly the sodden knickers that had so thwarted him came easily down her thighs.

The grass tore between his clenched hands as he felt his hips move of their own accord. She wriggled a little beneath him. "I… Luna, I don't know…" he said thickly. She shifted, a small crease of concern forming on her brow.

"I don't either. We'll learn together."

Her hand once again moved down between them and she tentatively guided him towards her. Her touch, though unsure, made him jerk forward. Her fingertips left him pushed up against moist heat and then he thrust again. They both gasped. Her legs wrapped around his. Her fingers dug into his shoulder. She was tight and warm and he could not still himself for long.

She tilted her head forward onto his shoulder, he pulled back and her breathing jolted. He wanted to be slower, he wanted to be gentle, he wanted to memorise every inch of her. But the pressure and the warmth, the dampness of her skin, his hips moved again and again despite him. She was both tight and slippery. He felt that familiar tension build in his groin. He wrapped his arm around her back lifting her toward him. "Luna," he moaned, the wave spread through him as he rocked forward one last time. He shuddered audibly and then was still. He felt Luna tremble beneath him.

Reaching up, torn blades of grass still caught between his sweaty fingers he brushed her hair away from her face. She watched him with bright silver eyes and kissed him gently. Their breathing still heavy and his heart still racing he rolled to her side. Her legs were still tangled with his own, sweat glistened on her skin, face to face in the grass he watched her. He glided his fingers across her forehead as she done to him only moments ago, down her cheek, her neck, the graceful length of her arm.

"Luna," he said softly, "are you alright? I didn't… are you alright?"

She moved against him like a quill feather, easily moving her body into his arms. "Yes Neville. I am."

They were sticky, holding her his first thought was how sticky he felt. It was an odd thought which quickly gave way to others. This time though her bare skin pressed against his, his arms wrapping around her breasts and waist, her thighs against his thighs, he felt no forceful desire. He only wished to hold her. His heart slowed. "I… Luna if… I mean, if you show me… if you tell me, I… I want to make it better for you." He kissed her shoulder.

"Neville," she said dreamily.

"Yes?"

"I do love you."

It wasn't perfect. It was confusing and painful and worrying and sticky and involved far too many wet clothes and yet it was the happiest memory he could recall.


	39. And then

Just now Neville had made certain that there was a large rock exactly where his shoulder blade would like to rest. He wasn't sure how long he was supposed to lay here in the grass and he was wondering how long it would take before the bugs and insects found them tangled and sweaty in said grass and thought their bare skin would be a lovely place for a holiday. These were all things he felt he couldn't really tell Luna.

"Neville?"

"I'm still here," he answered softly even though he still had his arms wrapped tightly around her warm body.

"Do you feel sticky and a little sleepy?"

"Ah well, um…"

"Because I do. And I haven't worn so few clothes out of doors since I was three," she said lightly.

"That's not entirely my fault; you were the one throwing your dress at me."

"Who said anything about fault?" Luna sat up as she spoke pulling herself from his arms.

"No one. I dunno it's sort of implied in the whole how come we're sans clothes in the first place." He pulled himself up beside her very aware that he was naked, more so than he'd been when her hands had been gliding across him.

"That's just silly."

"Silly," he said casting around for the boxers he knew she had thrown somewhere close by.

"Yes, silly. We didn't do anything wrong Neville." She was pulling on her pants now. He caught her hand. She stopped, looking up at him. Her hair messed and loose made her look more like the Luna he'd fallen in love with than the girl who had greeted him at her front door. He let her go.

"Luna… it was… it wasn't wrong. I don't think it was wrong. It was… the best thing that's ever happened to me. I just think your dad would kill me if he found out." Ah he'd found his boxers. Pulling them on he licked his bottom lip. "Besides sleepy and sticky um how do you feel?" he asked cautiously.

"What are you worried about?"

"Besides your dad or my Gran killing me? That I hurt you, that you didn't enjoy it, that you never want to do it again, that you never want to see me again… Luna when I said I loved you, I meant it. I wasn't just saying it to ah… you know that right?" It came out in a rush, so fast in fact he wasn't even certain he'd worried about all of it until he'd said it. He took a deep breath, reaching out to push the hair from her face. "'Cause I do love you."

"I'm happy I had sex with you Neville Longbottom," she said adjusting the straps on her bra. He cringed slightly at the word; it seemed altogether too clinical for how he felt about it. She looked up again giving him the blink and you'll miss it smile, the signal that everyone was always underestimating Luna Lovegood. "You didn't hurt me. I want to see you again. It was enjoyable. Daddy probably would kill you so let's not tell him." She handed him the crumpled pile of his shirt and waist coat. He nodded trying to turn it the right way out. "And Neville?" she said standing up.

"Uhuh?"

"I wasn't just saying it either." She floated over to where Ginny's dress lay damp and discarded.

"Which bit? The bit about your dad killing me or the bit about you loving me?" he asked feeling a little reckless. He pulled the shirt over his head.

"Oh, both."

"Say it again." He stood up walking to where she stood near the bridge.

"Daddy probably would kill you."

"Luna," he sighed as she wiggled back into the dress pulling her wand from its pocket. She turned to him and in the low light he could swear she blushed.

"I love you too Neville." He reached around her to zip up the dress. Neville dragged her in closer wrapping his arms around her.

"You're not entirely comfortable saying that are you?" he asked quietly

"I'm sure I'll get better at it."

"I promise I'll get better at the other stuff."

"You're not entirely comfortable talking about that," she said perceptively. He let her go, allowing himself for a moment to look as unnerved as he felt.

"No, not really. But practice makes perfect right?"

"I don't need perfect Neville." Luna raised her wand for a moment and in an instant the blue dress was dry. She pulled her hair off her neck twisting it once and then twice before slipping her wand into it to hold it in place.

"You deserve perfect," he said stroking her cheek. Luna quietly watched him.

He turned back to pull on his trousers, stuff his tie into his pocket and collect his wand. Not for the first time that night he wondered what she was thinking. He still couldn't make sense of the night's events the dancing, the swimming, the moment he'd let slip that he loved her, the crushing blow when she had looked at him pensively and told him not to say it. The worst of it was he couldn't make sense of the physical force with which she came at him pulling him towards her, dragging her hands across him, he'd wanted so much to be with her, touch her, feel her, in a way make her need him.

Now that he was clothed again the space to think reappeared. Why had she cried? Why had she decided then and there it was time for them to consummate their relationship? It wasn't how he'd expected the night to go at all.

When he turned back around he found her searching the small bridge for her butter beer cork necklace lost somewhere in the haste to shed clothing. Her wand tip was lit and she searched systematically. That was unexpected, if he'd been asked he would have said Luna was more of the look for lost things instinctually and hope to catch them out of the corner of your eye school of thought on searching. But here she was a true Ravenclaw searching each square foot thoroughly before moving on to the next.

Despite her method he was the first to find it along with his left sock. Holding the familiar charm tightly in his left hand her caught her round the waist lifting her from where she stood and placing her on the handrail. She looked at him with some alarm. "That was highly inappropriate!"

"You're one to talk," he said letting the cork drop from his hand to show her before placing it over her head. Her hand went straight to the little charm.

"Thank you for finding it."

"It would be hard to loose; Nargles don't want anything to do with it." He shrugged as she smiled brightly at him. She stretched forward to kiss him on the cheek before swinging herself off the ledge. She started to make her way up the gentle hill. He followed grabbing his shoes as he did so. He didn't want to let her go, now more than ever.

How Luna remembered exactly where the shoes were in the dark was beyond him especially with everything that had happened since she'd kicked them off and dragged him down the hill. But Luna did remember perfectly and in the blackness she bet down in just the right spot and collected the shoes.

"Luna," he whispered to her in the shadows of her home as he caught up to her. "Luna, I… I don't want to leave you." He felt her fingertips brush along his hairline down his cheek and across his jaw.

"But you will have to," she said.

"Maybe I could…"

"No. It's going to be alright Neville, you'll see me tomorrow."

"That seems like an increasingly long time away. You can't just… you can't and then…"

She untangled her wand from her hair again as he spoke. "Lumos," she said softly and the wand lit the small circle where they stood. He could see her now more clearly than she'd been even when lit by the small flames in the old pickle jars. He licked his bottom lip. Her face a little flushed, eyes wide and perfectly silver, her lips pink and pressed together in a small smile stopped his words. Oh that this girl had let him… that she had touched him in such a way… he felt a craving to pick her up and carry her back to the bridge try it all again only this time more slowly, more carefully. He could feel the tension in his shoulders as he forced the thought from his mind.

"It was a wonderful evening, I had a lovely time," she said.

"You did?" he asked.

"Of course," she said quietly, "didn't you?" for the first time since he'd helped her down the stairs in the borrowed heels he saw a moment of concern flicker across her face and he knew that it was all as new and unknown for her as it was for him.

"I did." He kissed her gently, dropping his shoes to the ground so that he could hold her close. Leaving her that night was harder than any night before. He wondered if each night would get continually harder until he was bound to her like a house elf to a family.


	40. Of heeled shoes and woven grass

"Neville!" Ginny ran at him "It's good to see you," she said as she flung her arms around him like she hadn't seen him in months rather than a week or two.

"You too Gin, you too," he said patting her gently on the back. It was nice to see Ginny looking happy again even if it was in short spates away from the Burrows and the funerals and even if her presence was unexpected.

"Ginny came to collect her shoes and dress but then she changed her mind about it and said I should keep the dress," Luna said from her front steps.

"But you insisted she take back the shoes didn't you?" he said to Luna over Ginny's shoulder. Ginny dropped back to the ground smiling and returned to her seat beside Luna on the stairs.

"Luna didn't need to insist. She made her feelings about heeled footwear very clear. You'd think I was advocating six inch stilettos for riding thestrals rather than these things to a restaurant." She held up the modest shoes to prove they weren't enchanted torture devices. "But she did look gorgeous in the dress so…" she shrugged, "don't tell me Luna looks gorgeous in anything Neville. I'll gag. Really I will. I may even throw up a little."

"Harry probably says the same things about you all the time."

"He better bloody well not. Sounds like the kinda stinksap Celstina Warbeck sings about." Neville rolled his eyes. He smiled at Luna.

"Hi Luna…"

"Hello Neville…"

She smiled back.

"Ugh. This is probably what Harry feels like around Ron and Hermione."

"I'm sure Harry has had plenty of time to adjust. Wasn't everyone just waiting for Ron and Hermione to figure it out for themselves?" Luna asked thoughtfully.

"I think he just ignores the things he doesn't want to think about. Like Ron and Hermione being Ron _and_ Hermione," Ginny said.

"Compartmentalisation is a sometimes useful coping mechanism," Luna said beside her. Ginny raised her eyebrows turning from Luna to Neville in askance.

"St. Mungo's?" she asked.

"It's very interesting. I have to say though some of it seems a little farfetched."

"_You_ think something from St Mungo's sounds farfetched?" asked Ginny.

"Yes, some of it. Some of it is quite good though and I think it's very important to have an open mind."

"As long as it's helping." Ginny squeezed Luna's hand for a moment before letting it drop. Luna paused twisting her hair between her fingers.

"Yes I think it is," she finally answered.

"Well, I have my shoes. I'm going to get going and leave you two to your, oh what was it Seamus called it?" she paused, clicked her fingers and added triumphantly "Mooniness! Oh I know that look," she grinned up at him. "That's the 'I'm going to work very, very hard and one day when you least expect it I'll get back at you.' look."

"Yes it does look like he's thinking that doesn't it?" Luna said dreamily. "It's something around the eyes and left nostril. It's a little like his, 'one day I'll prove you all wrong.' look." He raised an eyebrow wondering just when exactly they'd decided to catalogue the many 'looks' of Neville Longbottom. Ginny being sarcastic he could just about handle but when Luna piled on it was altogether too much.

"The sooner we stop quoting Seamus Finnegan the happier I'll be."

"I dunno Neville his Golden God speech was pretty funny."

"You know what Ginny? I reckon if I try really hard I can come up with a way to get back at you right now."

"Ha! I bet you could. And as much as I'd love to see what punishment you can devise for the heinous crime of quoting Seamus I have to get back. Mum's probably already preparing her 'so little time with her children till they all leave home.' guilt trip."

Ginny hugged them both before departing for the Burrows and leaving Neville standing awkwardly on Luna's doorstep. It had been different but familiar and in a way a little easier when it was the three of them again.

"Hi Luna…" he said again.

"Hello Neville," she said tilting her head. "We have done this bit, is it Wrackspurts? Or the sex that's made it confusing for you?"

"Um…" he said.

"I suspect it's the sex."

"Um…. I… So, uh, what were you and Ginny talking about?" Of course it was the bloody sex. He hadn't so much slept as had moments of unconsciousness between thinking about the sex. Luna, sex, and how not to think about the sex whilst he was at breakfast with his Gran or in the greenhouses with Professor Sprout or anywhere near Seamus Finnegan, everything was a little too reactionary to the images that still danced through his mind.

"The shoes, the dress, St. Mungo's, when she is going to Diagon Alley for her school supplies and if I would like to join her, the new edition of The Quibbler, that Lee Jordon got a kneazle without telling George and now their flat smells like kneazle and socks."

"Oh, is that all."

"Not all but most."

"You didn't tell her about… us?"

"Neville, we don't spend all our time discussing boys."

"Well yeah I know that… I just thought… not that I wanted you to or anything… Well I thought you might have wanted to talk about it. 'Cause it was important or something." He'd been worried standing there chatting normally with Ginny that Luna had told her everything. Now that Luna had denied it he was worried that she hadn't told Ginny anything. Was it possible, he thought, for sex to drive you mad?

"I thought that if I wanted to talk about it, it would be much easier to talk about it with you. There'd be far less catching up to do that way."

"Oh right," he said glumly and he sat down next to her.

"Did you want to talk about it with someone other than me? You see Seamus a lot at Hogwarts, yes?"

"Merlin! No!" The idea of discussing any of it with Seamus's grinning face was one of the tricks he'd used whenever the way Luna's nipples felt beneath the palm of his hand had popped into his mind.

"Did you want to talk about it?"

"Talk? Um, not exactly… ah did you need… want to talk about it?"

She thought for a moment before answering, "No I don't think I need to." He had kind of hoped she had wanted to talk about it. Luna was always a font of information when it came to magical creatures, real and unreal, conspiracy theories, cloud formations and kinds of puddings but when it came to finding out how she felt she made you do the most difficult thing of all and ask her directly. He was always worried that in asking he would receive an answer he really didn't want to hear.

He hadn't touched her yet. He'd got to her hillside, caught a running Ginny in his arms but he hadn't yet touched his girlfriend. He thought that if he touched her now the words 'when can we have sex again Luna, I'd really like to have sex again' might escape him, thus proving him to be no better than Great Aunt Enid's pug who would constantly hump your leg when you went to visit. The thought made him shy away from physical contact. He'd probably have to touch her at some point though; it would be weird never to touch her again. She'd work out that he wasn't touching her eventually and then… he kissed her forehead.

She was rolling a dirigible plum around in her open palm not paying any attention to the mild panic attack he was currently having and he kissed her forehead. It seemed the most innocuous place to kiss and he thought that maybe in kissing her he might divert attention away from the fact that he wasn't touching her. It hadn't worked she looked up at him in surprise.

"Why did you do that?"

"Yeah, I don't rightly know." He hung his head. "It's not just that there's loads of stuff. It's like I don't know how to act round you anymore."

"Because we had sex?"

"Yeah, should we really keep saying that? Your dad's just inside."

"Daddy went to conduct an interview in Berkshire; he's not home at the moment." Neville's mouth dried up like seaweed left behind when the tide went out.

"You mean we're here alone?" He tried to swallow.

"There's always something here, but yes there are no other humans, not since Ginny went home," she said curiously, "I think it's very sad that you don't know how to act around me anymore Neville. Besides the strange way you crashed into my forehead with your lips just now I thought you were behaving the usual way you behave."

"We are here alone?"

"Yes."

"So if I was to kiss you properly, there'd be no one to call me Mr Longbottom and ask me to leave?"

"I would still be here, but I don't think I would ask you to leave. I quite like you kissing me."

"That makes two of us," he said turning back to her. She turned her face towards him, leaning in. He kissed her. If he could have dragged her closer he would have. If the world had dissolved he would not have noticed, his attention solely on her, her warm breath and her soft embrace. Neville let her go more quickly than he wanted to knowing he wanted to do so many more things than just kiss her.

"I have something for you," she said opening her eyes.

"You do?"

"Yes I made it this morning before my appointment with Healer Meeks." She fished in the pocket of the loose smock she wore. When she pulled her hand from the pocket she held a woven bracelet.

"You made this?"

"Yes it's the grass from the field between here and the Burrows. If you wear it you'll always have a tiny piece of that day with you." She slipped the stiff brown and green circle over his hand. "Neville?"

"Ah yeah?" he said still staring at the little handmade token.

"You don't have to act any particular way around me."

"You say that now but… if I'd kissed you like that in front of Ginny, in front of your dad… If I did all the things I wanted to do." He swallowed, he'd spent the morning trying not to think about removing each and every item of clothing from Luna's skin and kissing every piece of her, she'd spent it making him a grass cuff to remember her by.

"But you didn't."

"But I wanted to. I wanted…"

"But you knew not to, not then and there. You knew that yesterday and you know it today." She moved herself closer on the step. "I think you think you became someone else last night that you crossed over into another Neville and there is no getting back to the Neville you were."

"If I had to give up last night I don't think I'd want to," he said watching her as she thought it through for him. She gave a small shake of her head smiling her little smile of knowing.

"If you think that way then every time you learn something new you become a new Neville and the old one disappears. I quite like the old Neville, so I'm going to think of it differently. Life is not a series of endings of one person and beginnings of another but one long and ever expanding you, like the patchwork pocket on my mother's dress we just add more and more pieces."

"Patchwork." His eyebrow rose.

"Yes a patchwork Neville and a patchwork Luna."

"Alright," he sighed smiling at the images she wove, "I've always known not to do something. You think I'm going to learn when to do something?"

"Something like sex?" her lilting voice only indicating vague curiosity.

He groaned, pushing his face into the palms of his hands. "Luna you do know that I am seventeen right?"

"You'll be eighteen on the 30th of July."

"Not quite the point that I was making."

"Oh," she said, taking his hands away from his face.

"I'm always going to want to. Merlin knows, especially with you sitting there calmly asking me about it. How am I supposed to know when to, when it's alright?" It wasn't all he wanted to ask. He wanted to ask how he was supposed to keep distracting himself from the thoughts of her legs wrapped around him, the way she had gasped against his shoulder.

"That's an interesting question," she answered.

"Is there an answer?"

"Do you always think you are supposed to have mastered something before you've begun it?"

"No. I mean, I'm usually the one that takes forever to master it." Sometimes he wished Luna would answer a question directly, but then she wouldn't be the same Luna.

"Maybe it wouldn't take so long if you didn't believe you needed to be at the end before you were at the beginning. An acorn would never grow into an oak if it spent all it's time worrying that it wasn't an oak yet." His eyebrows bunched together, how exactly did they get onto the topic of trees? He hoped dearly it wasn't a euphemism for something uncomfortably sexual.

"Luna, I love you and all but I have no idea what you're going on about." She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

"We're learning Neville. When you are learning and you want to know something, I have found the best thing to do is ask the question."

"It's not quite the same as asking you to correct my wand work," he said before realising how it sounded. He was certain she'd seen his blush before he'd thrown his face into his hands in mortification.

Luna eventually stopped laughing.

And Merlin help him he even found that arousing.


	41. Of being Great Aunt Enid's Pug

There were two ways to deal with Luna laughing at you. One was to slowly burn with humiliation and annoyance. The other was to put aside your ego and enjoy the silly ecstatic noises that she made. As much as it went against the natural grain of him, Neville took a deep breath and tried to put into practice the things he had learnt being Luna Lovegood's friend. It wasn't easy. Especially when she would stop, look up at him and start all over again but he was honestly tired of feeling embarrassed and even if it was his accidental dirty pun that had set her off it was always lovely to hear her laugh. Lovely and frankly kind of sexy, which was something he would never have thought possible. He would always have argued that the sound of a girl laughing at you would be the most potent of all shrinking spells.

So after a short time he made himself comfortable resting his chin on his hand and waited her out. After all it did seem that she'd stopped laughing at him at a certain point and started laughing at her own inability to stop laughing.

Eventually however she hugged her sides and wriggled herself into his arms with a movement that seemed a little apologetic and yet at the same time little grateful for the happiness his slip of the tongue had provided.

The only question he wanted the answer to anymore was when Mr Lovegood would be expected back from Berkshire. He licked his bottom lip thoughtfully trying to word the question in a way that didn't automatically scream Great Aunt Enid's Pug.

The sky had started to take on the pinkish edges that prelude sunset. Luna was now forever bound up with the beginnings and endings of days, early grey mornings and afternoons bleeding purply into nights.

"Luna?"

"Yes Neville."

"When's your dad expected back?"

"Soon," she said her fingertips tracing the hairs on his forearm distractingly.

"Oh." She shifted slightly to look up at him.

"Did you want to come up stairs and see the finished painting?"

"Uh I would. But I'm not sure I should be up there. With you. Alone"

"We are. Alone. Right now," she answered mimicking his own pointed speech.

"It's different, sitting on your doorstep."

"How?"

"Because we're outside for one."

"Because we had sex?"

"For two."

"We did both those things outside last night Neville; your reasoning seems terribly specious."

"It's different, especially when your dad gets home."

"Yes you've said that. I don't think you've explained how yet."

"Are you doing this deliberately?"

"Maybe." She smiled a half smile designed only to frustrate him further.

"Maybe? Luna I'm trying to be honourable over here and you are not making it easy." He threw his hands up as he spoke with little regard for her resting in his arms. Luna seemed to grow bored of this line of discussion her eyes becoming less focused as she spoke.

"When can I come for tea again Neville?"

"Um. I dunno."

"What about tomorrow afternoon?"

"Not tomorrow afternoon. Gran has her monthly afternoon tea with Professor Marchbanks," he said grateful to be discussing something wholly unarousing.

"Oh?"

"Mmm once a month they have tea in town."

"And you stay home?"

"Well I do now. When I was younger I had to go too. Some of the most boring hours of my life and I've sat through Professor Binns on the Giant Wars."

"So when I come for tea I won't get to see your Grandmother?" she said absentmindedly as if he hadn't told her not to come tomorrow at all.

"Only if you showed up tomorrow… Are you planning on showing up tomorrow?"

"Yes," she answered simply.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Why?"

"Because," he said, "because… because Great Aunt Enid's Pug Luna. That's why."

"Did a spell backfire cause it to expand to a point where it prevents entry to your house?" she asked turning to him her large eyes giving him no indication if she was having him on or not.

"No," he said beginning to feel the frustration prickle at the back of his neck. "And just this once let's not play silly things that could have happened to Aunt Enid's pug that would prevent you from visiting tomorrow." He sighed heavily. "Aunt Enid's pug, Luna, humps the leg of anyone who comes to visit. Everyone tries to ignore it but it's impossible. He has no self-control and all you can do is look politely embarrassed."

"And Aunt Enid's pug is at your house?" she asked watching him closely.

"No," he said "I am Aunt Enid's pug."

"You are Aunt Enid's pug?" she echoed clearly failing to understand him.

"Yes. No self-control, utterly embarrassing and if you visit when Gran isn't there to be disgusted by my behaviour I reckon I might end up humping your leg."

"And if you came up stairs to see my finished painting now?" she asked finally understanding.

"Quite possibly the same thing," he said sadly. She seemed to think about this for a moment twisting a lock of her pale blonde hair in her fingers again.

"It has never occurred to you to wonder why I might want to visit when your Grandmother isn't around to be disgusted by your behaviour…"

"No. Huh? What?"

"I'm seventeen too," she said before stretching up and kissing him softly on his cheek. "You're not the only person who'd quite like to have sex again."

"You?"

"Yes."

"At my house? When my Gran's at tea?" His brow furrowed.

"As much as the grass was interesting I think it would be nice to try the conventional way to see if we are missing out on something." Luna reached up placing her thumb in the point where his confused eyebrows met. She giggled delightedly when the sudden revelation of what she had just said caused his eyebrows to shoot upwards.

"Luna Lovegood!" he said as he began kissing her cheek and neck curling his hands into her mess of blonde hair.

"Yes," she sighed contentedly.


	42. Are you sure you don't want a sandwich?

Neville sat down on the third step from the narrow door in the darkened entrance hall as soon his grandmother left for afternoon tea. He waited flipping the galleon in his left hand and catching it. He'd sent Luna a message as soon as the Longbottom residence was emptied. It was a task that he was certain Hermione had never intended the coin to be put.

He realised as he sat bouncing his foot anxiously against the wooden floor board that he'd given up all pretence that he was not totally directed by his basest urges. As much as the night had been given over to nebulous dreamlike ideas of what would happen when Luna walked through that skinny brown door, actual ideas of what he would do had remained indistinct and any attempt to make them clearer increased the knot of anxiety in his gut. Any attempt to plan beyond the message he'd charmed into the warm coin set him abuzz like radio static.

A crack from outside brought him to his feet he leaned over the gap to grab the door handle rather than waste further time with the few steps. One good tug and she was there, her long wavy hair pinned behind her ears.

"Hello Neville," she said. She did that, regardless of the situation she always said hello. He stared and coughed, the moisture in his mouth vanishing into nothingness. It was better than spitting he supposed as Luna looked concerned and offered to get him a glass of water. He waved the offer aside.

"I mean unless," his croaked, "you want some water? Do you need water?"

"No. Thank you," she said.

"Gran's gone to tea," he said.

"I know," she smiled opening her palm to show the small gold coin she evidently held on to since she'd received his message. For all the anxiety and desire bubbling inside him, warmth overwhelmed them as he looked at the galleon and the slight imprint it had left in her palm. He wondered if she was aware of all the things she did on a regular basis that were so reassuring to him. He wondered if she was aware that every time he'd taken a risk it was her quite stability that made him keep going, made him much surer that if the worst did happen that he wouldn't be alone to face it. He suspected she did, Luna knew things. He grinned goofily at her as the warmth settled his shoulders into a much more comfortable position.

"Neville," she said tilting her head as she spoke, "am I supposed to do something in particular while you stand there smiling at me? I ask because I think it is making me very aware of my hands. I don't know why that should be but I feel as if I don't know where to put them anymore."

"Oh, right. No. Sorry. Just," he shook his head reaching out for the very same hands she was so concerned about, pulling her gently towards him and resting his arm against the door to close it behind her. He saw a small indentation form between her pale brows as he did so, he supposed it was at the sound of the heavy door clicking into place but her face returned to its mildly curious state quickly so he brushed the thought aside. "So um, do you want anything? Tea, water, pumpkin juice… a sandwich?" he fumbled helplessly.

"No. Thank you," she said a slight smile playing on her lips. She looked up at him and then up the stairs. "Your room is up the stairs?"

"Yeah," he nodded still surprised when she brushed past him up the stairs. "Oh right, um," he said as he followed watching her turning her head curiously as she reached the top of the stairs. Before he could indicate the direction something seemed to tell her the way and she turned as she took the last stair and disappeared round the bannister into his room. Despite his longer legs Luna outpaced him she moved lightly and swiftly when she wanted to. She was inside before he reached the doorway. He took a breath trying to assert some control. In his thoughts this had been the point when all had turned into pink mist and naked skin and curved shapes. They were good thoughts but they left him without a way to get from A to B let alone through the rest of the alphabet.

Neville peered into his little room, not much had changed about it since he was eleven. There had seemed very little point in changing it much of the year spent at Hogwarts and asserting his own identity on the sparsely decorated room seemed a fight with his Gran not worth its cost. It suddenly seemed very childish and awkward with Luna gliding a finger across the edge of his desk. If he'd lived to be as old as Nicholas Flamel he'd have not thought he'd be bringing a girl, a young woman, back to this room. She looked up smiling brightly as he came closer.

"How'd you know this was my room?"

"Hmmm? Oh I don't know the other doors had a bathroom and grandmotherly feel to them. The door way further down feels…" she paused, "loved but somehow sad and that did not feel like somewhere you would sleep. I already know the guest room."

"A bathroom feel?" he asked incredulously.

"Oh alright," she smiled a smile more fitting of Seamus Finnegan. "I already knew where the bathroom was too."

"You," he said trying not to grab her and run his hands all over her body, "are very strange."

"Yes people say that."

"It's a good strange."

"People don't often say that. But that's okay I don't mind being strange. I like that you think it's a good strange. It's like being loved."

"It is love," he said a little stung, "and like and just because you are… I dunno… Luna" he finished weakly, frowned and then trying to cover the fumbled declaration he added, "The room, further down the hall. It was my dad's… before." He shrugged.

"Yes I thought so," she said as if such things were normal. "You haven't kissed me."

He felt his eyebrow raise. "Not for want of wanting to." She looked as if she were about to enter another fit of giggling the sudden brightness to her large eyes, the quick intake of breath, he kissed her feeling the surprise and curl of laughter on her lips. She pulled away more quickly than he would have liked drifting back and along the bed.

"Want of wanting" she said sounding lost in thought. He tried not to follow her, to give her room.

"It really wasn't that funny."

"I think it was." She'd drifted to the back of his bed twisting the bottom of her dress in her fingers. He watched the fabric become taught across her thighs as it hitched up slightly, the way her fingers caught inside the washed out material started to loose colour.

"Is there something wrong?" He was worried now. Not about the many things he was sure to do wrong in the effort to get from A to B to C to… well where ever she would let him. He was worried about her small and swaying in his room. He rocked forward on his feet uncomfortably aware of how much larger he was than her.

"I don't think I'm very good at this Neville," she said not looking up from the pillows he'd plumped anxiously this morning.

"This? What this?"

"Doing things that are … planned." She looked so much younger saying those words. For a moment she was the fifteen year old signing the parchment Hermione had proffered, no for a moment she seems younger than that even and he recoiled at the thought of it.

"Luna, I, we don't have to do anything. If you're not comfortable. If you want to do anything, we , uh I, you don't have to do anything." He could hear the edge of panic in his voice and without meaning to he had taken a step back from her colliding with the desk.

She looked a little surprised, letting go of the edge of her dress letting it fall crumpled back against her bare legs. "No I don't," she said gently but he still felt the reproach. "I want to though. I think it is good to do things you aren't good at yet, especially if you want to be good at them. I only wanted you to know that doing new things and doing new things when you have planned to do them feels very different, at least to me."

Neville rested himself back against the desk. "So you didn't plan the other night?"

"No, no I don't think I did."

"Oh" he said trying to fit the new piece of information into his head and work out exactly what it meant.

"Not planning does not mean not wanting Neville." She was in front of him again close and sweet smelling and he hadn't seen her move.

"Luna?"

"Mmm?" she said patiently watching him formulate his question.

"You're nervous aren't you?" She smiled again at that as if it was wonderful that the thought had only just occurred to him.

"Yes."

"Oh thank Merlin!" He sagged. She gave a bright giggle cracking in the still room like ice in fresh pumpkin juice.

"You're happy that I'm nervous?"

"I'm relieved I'm not the only one," he corrected then rolled his eyes. "But you knew that."

She wrinkled her nose. "I don't know everything Neville."

"I have yet to find something you don't know," he said pulling her in to him finally feeling comfortable with her being there in his room. "About me at least, you still haven't found the crumpled horn snorknack."

"Crumple Horn Skornack," she replied muffled against the cotton of his shirt.

"Exactly," he said. "So what are we going to do? You want that sandwich?"

"You seem more nervous about my lack of sandwiches," Luna mused.

"There are a thousand things I'm more nervous about but this is the one thing I can actually do anything about."

"You don't have pudding?"

"Luna do you live entirely on pudding?" he said pulling back so he could see her face.

"Of course not, but if I could I think I would."

"Come on then, there's some strawberries in the kitchen maybe some cream. It's the best I can do I reckon."

"You don't want to stay up here?" she asked.

"I want…" he licked his bottom lip. I want to touch you, I want to move that soft fabric back up your legs, I want to hear you make that little sound of longing, I want to not be stuck half way between there and not there. I want you to feel safe and happy and I want you not to seem small and young because it scares me and I'm not sure why it does, I don't want to hurt you and I'm scared that I will, I want to be near you longer than just an afternoon and I haven't figured out how to make sure that happens and that scares me almost as much as the fear that I might hurt you. I want so many things that have no names. I want things that have names but I've never been good at saying them. Don't ask me what I want Luna, it opens up the flood gates and we might never get them closed again. "Luna I want to spend the afternoon with you. Whatever happens happens. But first pudding because we can."

She twisted her fingers into his before she spoke. "I haven't seen Great Aunt Enid's pug at all."

"Yeah? How about that," he tried.

"You are trying very hard not to be Great Aunt Enid's pug aren't you?"

"The longer we stand here the harder it is not to touch you," he said honestly.

In reply she held up their entwined hands quizzically.

"Yeah not that kind of touching."


	43. Wrestle

He wasn't sure what had made him reach across the butcher's block and stroke his thumb along the underside of her bottom lip taking the small piece of strawberry flesh from her skin. He was grateful to the impulse regardless. The small touch, her bright eyes and within seconds he was sucking the pink fruit stains from her lips. Even though he could feel her mouth move with his and her fingertips press into his bicep below the cuff of his t-shirt he pulled back for a moment concerned that the nervousness that had overwhelmed her in the oppressive planning of the afternoon was still present. She moved with him the gap between them only growing infinitesimally.

He breathed focusing on her face in the little moment. She looked determined. She looked forceful. He may have laughed at the flash of continuity, the little truth that Lavender had spoken in the seemingly long ago night. He needed forceful. He needed Luna. Her hand spread open over his cheek her index finger lightly grazing his lips to silence him had he thought to speak. He blinked slowly feeling the world slow as his heart sped; he lifted her from the stool and dragged her back up the stairs.

Another time or place he may have felt guilty pulling her up the staircase, moving her almost carelessly into his small room, twenty minutes ago he had felt guilty, her thumb gripped in his palm however moved in a soft semicircle brushing over its roughen skin and clamminess. When they were inside his room again Neville felt the small tug on his hand he turned to find her closing the door by leaning back against it. Luna looked innocent, not naïve, Luna was never naïve she was far too knowing to be naive. She looked as if none of the things they had done had sullied her, that there was nothing shameful in their past, present or future.

"Alright?" he asked finally finding words.

"Yes," she said softly not taking her eyes from his face.

"So just, you know…" he coughed a little nervously scratching the back of his neck, "let me know if… if you start to feel nervous, if… well you know."

"Yes Neville, you too," she said not moving from the door. He reached out wrapping his hands around her waist. He pulled her closer trying not to press too hard against her soft skin. Looking down at her he could see a pale pinkness to her skin and the way his hands around her waist had lifted her dress a little further up her thighs.

"Luna, I'm always nervous it's something you might just have to accept." His voice came out lower than he'd expected. She lifted herself upwards on to her tiptoes tilting her head back as she did so, he caught a small closed lipped smile before she caught his lips and leant all her body weight against him. He lifted her, spreading one of his hands around the small of her back so that she rose further off her toes and then still registering the way her tongue found his in his mouth he stepped back to the bed and sank comfortably down on to the quilt. She returned softly to the floor standing held in place by his hands between his opened legs.

He pulled his mouth from hers taking time to press his lips down her jaw line and her throat to the hollow of her clavicle pulling the loose dress from her skin so he could find the spot that had made her sigh against him often enough. His other hand moved from her back down the soft curve of her buttocks the dress had ridden up further with each of their movements and his fingertips grazed the elastic of her knickers at the junction of her thigh.

Her hands seemed to copy his own movements moving down the back of his t-shirt with such feather light touch that it was almost painful to be separated from her by the cotton. When she reached his jeans she pulled at the shirt freeing it before removing his wand from his back pocket. Without looking he grabbed her hand catching his wand between them a little too fiercely.

"Wha'?" he said before he could stop himself. He consciously forced his brow to unfurrow. She had caught him off guard he felt unsafe when the wand wasn't with him.

"The spell," she said gently her eyes wide and alert.

"Righ'" He took the cherry wand out of her hand avoiding her gaze as he spoke the prophylactic. He put the wand beside him on the bed feeling her lips press into his neck. He could feel her breathe against him leaning closer and closer. His hands slipped beneath her dress stroking her back. "Luna?" he said against her ear, "is this alrigh'?" he had reached the clasp of her bra. She gave a nod and abruptly sucked firmly against the skin below his jaw. He felt his body freeze and then thaw in quick succession.

He unclasped the bra clumsily but as quickly as he could and then pressed the flat of his hand against the suddenly warm bare skin between her shoulder blades. She tugged again at his t-shirt. He was hard but then he had been hard since she'd let him suck strawberry juice from her mouth and pull her up the stairs. Releasing her he pulled the t-shirt over his head by the collar and caught his breath as her hand ran over his chest. Free of the t-shirt he looked up at her, her bottom lip caught between her teeth she seemed to concentrate hard on the sensation from her fingertips.

"This time," he said trying not to moan the words as he grasped the hem of her dress. He raised an eyebrow to ask permission. "This time, you… you've gotta talk more… tell me wha' to… alrigh'?" Her hands stop against his chest her eyes watching his fingers on the fabric of her dress. "Luna?" he asked again.

"Yes," she said looking back up, two circles of pink on the apples of her cheeks and a smile in her eyes.

"Good," he grinned as he started to slide the fabric over her thighs and stomach. The dress came over her head messing her soft pale hair and taking her bra with it. In the clear light of his bedroom Luna stood before him pale hair falling haphazardly about her shoulders, pink nipples puckered atop soft breasts and in knickers with painted sunflowers on them. He could see every part of her that he had not been able to see in the gloom and frantic movements of that first night. If he stared surely he would be forgiven.

He ran his fingers across her shoulder down her side and under the curve of her breast. She quaked and, Merlin help him, he felt proud. He leant forward pressing his lips to her sternum and she wrapped her arms around him fingers weaving into his hair. He turned her cupping her back beneath her arms and dragging her down on to the bed. Beneath the denim he was hard against her but he was going to try his damnedest to take it slow.

He kissed down her warm body, across clavicles and down the sheer lines and generous curves of her breast she wriggled against his lips a sound half way between a giggle and a moan sneaking out of her very pink mouth. And he ached, ached to know what to do, ached to be with her, be inside her, ached physically at each point her hands and mouth touched and then left to find another part of him. He ached and begged silently let this be good, she deserves good.

Between them she twisted the button of his fly. His eyes flew open against the swell of her stomach against her belly button. "Not yet" he said quietly pulling her hand back up to his mouth. "Not yet. We have time."

"Time?" she said sounding amused by the way he kissed her hand.

"Time," he agreed, "time for you." And then because he had started talking and now wasn't sure he could stop he added, "Sunflowers?"

"They're so very alive, the way they turn to face the sun…I like them." She lay back against his pillow staring up at his ceiling letting him trace invisible designs on her skin as she spoke. "Alive is hopeful." He slipped his fingers underneath the corners of the sunflower pants pulling them lower on her hips.

"Sunflowers and the moon," he said to himself running his hand across her hip bone. He raised himself up to kiss her again the feeling of his bare skin against hers bringing goose bumps to the surface. He tangled his left hand in hers before he spoke again. "You've gotta show me wha' to do Luna."

When she raised her eyebrows looking confused by his question he slid their hands down toward the sunflowers and the warmth of her. The rounding of her lips as she realised what he wanted her to do both surprised and pleased him. She closed her eyes pale lashes resting on cheeks pinked with a renewed flush. Luna was beautiful, soft, smart and kind but he wondered how many people realised how truly brave the little witch was. He breathed against her neck as she pushed their hands between her legs and under the sunflowers. His heart thumped erratically as her index and middle fingers pressed his fingers between her folds and against her. The slick warmth hid for a second how firmly she pressed. Turning a little so that her back pressed into him her hips rocked her forward into their combined fingers. Her lips parted and she breathed the inhale catching in her throat. She was pressing his fingers in a staccato rhythm at the apex of her when she changed the movement adding a little circular turn, he caught on fast. Sucking at the soft skin of her neck her heard the small sound of longing and wondered if he could keep his own longing in check much longer.

Her skin was damp and salty in his mouth. She froze against him her hips pressed forward into his fingers, her own fingers stilled as well but he continued the little movements in the moist heat until she shuddered against him and pushed his hand away with more urgency than he had ever seen her act. It took him a moment to make sense of her behaviour but when he did he grinned. Leaning over her to take both her hands above her head he kissed her with all the passion he had been trying to temper.

"Wicked!" he exclaimed into her hair and did not pull her hand away when it travelled between them again to twist the button of his fly open.


	44. So simple

She was adept at getting his jeans down his backside much more adept than he was at navigating her sunflower pants. He did admittedly keep getting distracted by her mouth, her breasts, the ragged breaths that still escaped her long after her hands had pushed him away and her hair had clung to her forehead.

But tangled clothed and clothless above the sheets, hair caught under elbows and then corrected, moans and giggles made equally into open mouths, things came away, legs separated and he was inside her .

His eyes opened finding hers beneath him silver and more focused than he could remember ever seeing and it was impossible to look away. For the first time since he'd pulled her from the stool in the kitchen he held himself still and silent, wrapped in her in all the ways possible, damp skin against damp skin, hot breath against hot breath. His weight was barring down upon her as the crush of her smooth muscles held him in place. They were connected and to move might sever that connection. One breath, two, then three.

She shifted beneath him her eyes never leaving his watching and waiting for something he knew she wouldn't say aloud. He moved with her slowly at first no longer aware of his weight through his shoulders only of the saltiness of the skin at her neck, the peaked roughness of her nipples against his chest and her sighs like ocean spray in his ears.

The heat built onwards and though he fought against it he moved faster and faster. His movements were made a glide by the wetness of her. She canted her hips. He groaned and felt her arms coil around his head pulling him infinitesimally closer, her finger tips pressing into the rope of muscles down his neck. Neville's world began to narrow darkness swallowing up the edges. Her head tilted and he lost her eyes but he felt her hold her breath as he lost rhythm and shuddered and then fell aching with a sudden release.

She was small. She fit into the curve of his shoulder and his side. One breath, two then three. He brought her with him as he rolled aside the sunlight illuminating the dappled pinkness of her skin. In a more graceful motion than he would have thought possible she dragged her tangled curls across her shoulder and out from under their bodies. Neville thought her eyes looked like mercury, for a moment they danced with an ethereal fire before she dipped her head and rested against him. Their legs weaved between each other he breathed in cool air and let the room return to its normal size. Somehow in the tangled sheets, the half discarded clothing, the sweat messed hair and the musty smell of them she managed to make it all look beautiful.

"Luna?"

"Mmm," came her muffled reply.

"You alright?"

"Yes. Neville are you alright?"

He cupped her cheek rubbing his thumb against it in small circles he hoped were reassuring tilting her chin back so he could once again see her expression.

"Merlin yes," he could feel a grin threatening. "I don't reckon you ever need to ask that."

She stretched out cat like before she spoke. "Out of the two of us, I suspect you are the less likely to say if something was wrong."

If words were a punch then they were not pulled.

"Wha'?" he asked pulling himself up on to his elbow trying to blink her words into sense. "Why would you say that?" She shrugged removing herself from the bed. "What? Where are you going?"

"Nowhere," she answered simply as she stepped closer to his window. She pushed the panel of glass upwards allowing fresh air into the suddenly oppressive atmosphere of his bedroom. Luna stood quietly silhouetted against the light from the outside world. Naked, she reminded him of a cello with perfect curves drawn from her neck round her breasts to the fullness of her bottom. Even as the anger grew inside him he still wanted to pull her back from the window and slide the palm of his hands over each camber and sway.

"Luna," he said feeling the way his jaw clenched after each word, "why would you say that?" He ran through every moment they'd been together since she'd walked back through the portrait hole in the room of requirement and the relief and terror had made him almost physically ill. He had been more open with Luna than he had ever been with anyone in his life including Gran. Even before Harry and Ron and Hermione had walked off into the countryside and Ginny had pulled them back into the beginnings of an army he'd told Luna more about what he had thought and felt than he honestly had words to tell with. How could she say, how could she think that he would lie to her that he wasn't… how could she?

"There's a scent," she said lifting the window a little more but still not turning to face him or answer his question. "Sex, there's a scent. It's not bad but I think your grandmother would notice and I don't think you want her to know." Just as the anger forced prickles of frustration to his skin she turned back to him. "You don't say when things are wrong Neville. Not if you think it will upset someone. Not even when I ask."

"You didn't tell me about the sleeping thing," he said his anger surging over any guilt he may have felt for bring up the subject. Her eyebrows lifted for a second making her look more surprised than her usual curious expression.

"No I didn't," she said serenely returning once again to the bed. "But I won't tell you everything is alright when it isn't."

He rubbed madly at his hair and face. "I don't know what you want from me. I'm trying. I am. I've been as honest as I know how. I don't understand why you're saying all this. I was. It was. Did you want to hex me when I least expected it?" He started pulling on his boxers ridiculously caught around one leg. "This isn't fair Luna."

Just as he managed to get the boxers back on he felt her reach for him. He wanted to push her away but her lips pressed into his jawline and he stopped. "Did I hurt you?" she asked between kisses, "I wasn't trying to hurt you."

"No it's fine," he said dully before catching himself, "No. Yeah, it did hurt." She stopped still leaning in her lips slightly parted. "I tell you more than I tell anyone in the world and you don't see that? That isn't good enough?"

"You still have nightmares, you can't be without your wand not for a moment and when I ask how you are you say fine." She pushed her hand into his chest kissing him again. "I didn't say it wasn't good enough. Neville I only said you don't tell me if something is wrong."

"I can't do this. Not now not like this. You're naked and in my bed. I don't want to talk about nightmares. Why does this have to be muddled up with all of that? I want it to be simple." She was naked, so very naked.

"I don't know if it's ever simple."

"Yeah alright but it doesn't have to be this." He threw his hands up as if trying to throw the destroyed moment away, the nightmares, and the panic.

"Each feeling separate from the next?" she said as if she was testing the temperature of the waters.

"Sometimes. I don't know. You ask too much of me sometimes you know that? It's hard enough working out how to do all this right without the other stuff getting it's…. getting in it too." Yes he was aware that he was less than coherent but for a small perverse moment he felt it was right that she should have to work out what he was saying.

He reached around her waist pulling her on top of him. He could look into her eyes again watch her lips move a little as if she were recounting his speech. He kissed her harder than he'd meant to before she got to the end of his half articulated thought. His hand pressed into the roundness of her hips, her thighs straddling him, the moist heat of her limited only by his boxers. He wanted to kiss her hard enough to make her forget everything but that he was kissing her. He wanted to slide his fingers back into her and make the moment clean and pure and only about them just once more. He wanted to forget just as much as he wanted her to forget. He ran a calloused finger across her nipple, sucking on her bottom lip as he did so. "This can be, we can just do this for a little bit it doesn't have to be about the other stuff," he said thickly into her open mouth.

"We can't escape into it Neville," she answered as she arched and he wondered if she said it because she had hoped to escape too.

His brow furrowed. He licked his bottom lip for a moment pausing as his hand moved over her hip. He made sure she looked at him; made sure she could see the truth when he said it. "No, but one thing at a time alright?"

There was a flicker in her silver eyes and then she closed them no longer asking for reasons or explanations. Her hand left the bed and pulled him closer, her consent wordlessly given. He pushed his fingers between them feeling for the place that would make it all so simple.


	45. The cracks

The cracks in his ceiling that he had stared at for years on end looked different; with her resting against his chest the same wobbling lines he'd known his whole life felt different. Something in the separation of the greying plaster had changed he was certain of it. She was breathing in perfect opposition to him. In the stillness he could run his fingers down her spine and enjoy the relaxed bonelessness of their bodies held together by his arms.

He might forget all responsibility, time and pain in this way pushing back at everything with the fullness of now.

"I think," she murmured against his neck so that it was equal sound and vibration. "I think that a bed is preferable to grass. I can see why people most often make this choice.

"Mmm," he answered resisting speaking the only words his mouth wanted to make, the words that began 'stay'.

The thing was, he admitted to himself, it was getting later in the day and as much as he longed to remain here heavy limbed and heavy lidded pressed against her in the stillness of his room he could not. He could not because responsibility and time and pain existed regardless of how they both pushed back against it. Gran would come home soon and even if it appeared he was now a Neville who lay naked with Luna in his childhood bed he would not, could not, be a Neville who would do such things with blatant disregard for the woman who raised him.

Just a while longer, he thought with the sleepy recalcitrance of someone who habitually slept through alarms and resolutions to become a morning person. He felt rather than saw her raise herself from him and comb her hair from her face with splayed fingers. He kept his eyes shut. Perhaps if he didn't see her move or the expression on her face she would reconsider and fall back down and they could sleep. Layered in each other he was sure it would be a more restful sleep than he had managed since she had said he couldn't stay and that she wouldn't.

Luna, for all her arriving unexpectedly with an expression of confused amusement that seemed to say that she was just as surprised by her being there as you were at finding her there, had an unerring sense of time. Without reference to a clock or the sun in the sky she would know it was time to leave. He felt her fingertips press into the space between his eyebrows.

"If you hoped to pretend you were asleep you shouldn't frown so."

He opened his eyes reluctantly. "Just a little longer Luna," he said catching her fingers in his hand. She seemed to consider it as if all things should be considered then her hair tumbled back over her breasts as she shook her head.

"I don't think that would work."

He felt himself twitch between her legs at the sight of her and closed his eyes again before awkwardly rolling her off him and back down onto the bed. "I reckon I could…" he began smirking. He was surprised when she swiftly lifted her head from the tangle of sheets and pillows to press her lips against him.

"No you couldn't"

"So this is what it's going to be like?" he asked, "stealing moments and sneaking around… why can't anything just be…"

"Be?"

"Ah I dunno. Simple? Normal, I guess," he said frustrated as usual by the words that never seemed quite right.

"Neville, I suspect that this is the most normal thing about the last year. I may be wrong; I never paid much attention to these things but surely all teenagers, all teenagers who do this, sneak around? Besides normal is a highly overrated state. Greatness is never normal."

He was never going to understand her not completely he thought watching as her eyes unfocused as she thought about things or how her mouth formed the soft lilting words she used.

"Alright," he said pulling himself upright and resigning himself to losing her yet again, "I should strip the bed and clean up a bit."

"When did you last change the sheets?" Luna asked reaching off the edge of the bed for her underwear.

"This morning. Of course this morning!"

She giggled wriggling her things on under the sheets. "You don't suppose your grandmother might notice your sudden need to change sheets several times a day?"

"Oh right, yeah, of course… I'll just remake it I guess."

"I can do the cleaning spell," she offered pulling her lily handled wand from the crumpled dress.

"No," he said, "I mean I can do it later." But the confused look she gave him begged to be answered, pulling his t-shirt over his head he spoke whilst his face was hidden from view. "They smell like you… I like it. It's… It'll be like you're still here even when you've gone." He turned back to her, "Or is that creepy?"

Her hand found his resting on top of the tangled sheets. She ran her finger tips over the grass cuff that had stayed tied around his wrist since she's put it there. "You're still wearing it."

"'Course I am."

"I didn't know if you would. People sometimes do things because they think it would be rude not to. Not because they want to." In anyone else it would have sounded like self-pity but in Luna the observation only sounded like understanding tempered with a little sadness.

"No. I wouldn't… You gave it to me to remember you and that day. I won't take it off"

"It's not creepy?" she asked her eyes trained on the little grass gift so that from where he sat it appeared as if she'd closed them.

"No." She just smiled brightly her large eyes taking him in once again before she kissed him on the cheek. He waited as she threw her dress over her head carelessly wriggling on her knees on the bed beside him to get it to fall correctly, before hanging over the edge of the bed again to forage for a lost sandal.

He was pretty sure she had been drawing an analogy for him with the cuff he now twisted around his wrist. But he was only pretty sure and he was almost certain that plaiting grass one afternoon was not the same as wanting to keep her scent on his sheets.

She was as unfazed by the request as most things her hair tumbling waterfall like her feet kicked up as she used her knees to anchor her into the bed. She gave a cry of success and proffered the shoe like a trophy. In her other hand she produced one of his used socks. He snatched it quickly from her realising that his other hand had unconsciously sort out his wand and now clenched around the solid wood. He saw Luna's eyes flicker to it as his non dominant hand reached for the sock. He wondered if she would comment.

"Ah thanks, you really don't want to be touching my socks though. I don't even want to be touching my socks." He tossed the sock over his shoulder and wiped the infected hand across his t-shirt as a demonstration hoping she hadn't caught the rawness he'd seen reflected in her eyes.

When she giggled he kissed below her ear gratefully and not wishing to silence the sound with his mouth. The giggling came to a stop with a sound like a hiccough.

"What are you going to do about the nightmares?" she asked so softly that had he not been pressed into her neck he might not have heard her. He flinched berating himself that in that one tiny frozen moment he was now unable to deny hearing the question. He acknowledged it with a small groan; he could no longer refuse her an answer. He'd tried to be guarded and had failed. There was no way round but through.

"I keep hoping they'll go away on their own," he admitted.

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Um. Well. You could stay," he said hopefully.

"No I couldn't," Luna shook her head gently.

"Why not?" He could hear the childishness of the demand in his voice.

"Because eventually you'll need to learn how to feel safe on your own… feel calm on your own. Just like I have to do."

He blinked feeling beaten and wordless. After a time he spoke. The words came out in stutters held together with effort. "It doesn't… I don't… feel real. Nightmares, they feel real… the memories… real… alive… you. Luna you, this with you… feels real. Everything else feels… wrong?" He shook the word out hitting on a better word as he licked his bottom lip. "Empty… everything else doesn't feel. What if…what if nothing feels right again? And, and Luna I can't… how is more words… more talking supposed to make it better? I can't see how. It's… I'm holding on… but what if…" His voice broke on it. "I though' I was going to die tha' nigh' wha' if I was suppose' to?"

He didn't look at her even when she put her hand to his cheek. She handed him his jeans. She didn't say anything as he put them back on she didn't say anything as they pulled his quilt back over his bed and straightened the pillows. He feared numbly that she might not speak again.

"You aren't dead," she said when he finally looked at her and he almost believed her.

"What am I then?"

"Healing."

"Healing doesn't feel like this."

"Yes it does," she answered so firmly that he was taken aback. "Remember how skele-gro feels as your bones try to knit back together? Healer Meeks says that the mind is the same. It learns how to be one way and it can hurt when it has to learn how to be another way. Your mind has to learn how to be alive again and not how to prepare to die." She came closer now wrapping her arms around him. "If I had thought I was going to die I might have stopped feeling too. It seems only sensible to me. I don't think you're broken Neville, not forever. I think you will get better."

Neville trembled in her arms and could not tell her why.

_For those of you who like the soundtrack for the rest of the chapters are as follows. Thank you once again to all my readers and especially to those who review. It is so helpful to find out what you are thinking. If I could I would provide hugs and tea for each one. Special mentions go to Blue, Epic, ImOrca and Illusion who have popped in time and time again with so many helpful and supportive thought. _

**Chapter 38 **Firefly by Ed Sheeran

**Chapter 39 **Be what you be by Angus Stone

**Chapter 40** Strange Little Girl by Tori Amos

**Chapter 41 **She cries your name by Beth Orton

**Chapter 42 **The wrestle by Frightened Rabbit

**Chapter 43 **The wrestle by Frightened Rabbit

**Chapter 44 **Broken by Lifehouse


	46. Falling down

Luna left him on his doorstep. Reaching up she stroked across his forehead and down his cheek. She gave him the same smile that usually made him feel warm. He thought that perhaps he had returned the smile. His hand fell limp by his side when she let it go. When the crack came he felt angry, only angry that she would leave, angry that she would open him up and leave him.

The anger was enough to take him back inside the skinny front door but he could go no further. And on the same step which he had waited so anxiously for Luna he faltered and fell gripping the bannister and was unable to pull himself back up.

It was this same step on which his grandmother found him blankly staring and trembling with exertion. She looked at him once in the same cursory manner that she had always seemed to look at him. She placed her red handbag on the hall table and her vulture hat on the hat stand. When she looked at him again she must have registered that he had not moved nor greeted her in their standard fashion.

"Neville?" she asked in her normally clipped tones. When he neither flinched nor answered her voice became softer, a tone he had very rarely heard her use. "Neville?" she asked again and before he was aware that she'd moved she was unwrapping his bloodless fingers from the bannister with her own wrinkled hands. He did not have it in him to resist. She felt his forehead as though she was testing for a fever. "Neville stand up we are going into the living room," she said and Neville obeyed because his body knew Augusta Longbottom's was a voice to be obeyed.

She pushed him down the sofa and he only vaguely registered that she sat next to him her green robes taught over her knobbly knees. "We'll have no more of this now. You'll tell me what is bothering you." The words weren't angry or disappointed they were heavy with understanding and Neville thought for a moment that they were all the more painful because of it.

He couldn't make his hands stop shaking. If he lifted them from his knees she would see the way they vibrated like before an examination. With a crooked finger she lifted his chin turning his face towards her. She hadn't done that since he was little enough to believe she could see a lie in his eyes.

Slowly it occurred to him in his fog that the way he was behaving had made Augusta Longbottom treat him as if he were a child again. He'd been an adult to her not so long ago and now he had undone it all. He should feel ashamed.

Opening his mouth to speak, he felt cold and a ragged whisper was all he could manage, still he said, "I'm fine."

And his Gran who really could see a lie in his eyes said, "Child you are far from fine."

Neville made to stand, he made to insist he was fine, made to find his way to his room and hide the shaking. The little weight of his Gran's hand on his knee was more than he could manage against. He licked his dry lip. "I'm…" he started and was only mildly surprised when his voice cracked on it. The part of him that was always watching was more surprised when tears broke the surface. Then as if he were seeing himself from above he watched as he crumpled.

"Yes, yes, well it had to happen sometime," his Gran's voice was saying. She didn't understand, she couldn't understand.

"No, no," he coughed out before gasping in air for the next sobbing exhale.

"No? For Merlin's sake why ever not?"

"I…I'm...I," he bunched his hands into fists trying to force the words out through the sounds of grief he could not stop making. "Nothing that bad happened to me," he managed at last the words that had not left his mind since the battle.

"Oh I see," his Gran answered her voice carefully flat and then she dragged her finger across the scars that had been left too long to successfully heal. "Nothing at all," she added before handing him a handkerchief.

"Nothing that bad," he said again unable to change the wording so that she would understand. So many people had had it so much worse. He hadn't lost someone like the Weasley's had lost Fred, he hadn't been kidnapped or tortured or even hurt that badly. Not that badly, no it really wasn't that badly. He hadn't died, not like Harry who had come back or Lavender who hadn't or Fred or Collin or Professor Lupin or… there was that whopping wet cough as the names kept coming he was sure they would never stop.

He leant against his Gran her green robes smelling to him like self-pity and all the times he'd cried against her as a small child. She didn't correct him or dare to contradict him. She sat quietly patting at his hand as you would do a mewling infant.

After some time Augusta Longbottom spoke. "You were given the name Neville because it was a strong name, an old family name. Your Great Grandfather was a Neville and so was his Grandfather. I suspect Alice didn't like the name much. There was a time when she was carrying you I worried she would name you something ridiculous out of spite. I was foolish, your mother was not a spiteful woman but she did know how to worry me with a twinkle in her eyes. I am certain she did the same thing to your father. You were given the name Neville but your mother called you Pudding until you were five months old. Your Grandfather said to me "Gus, you can hardly blame her he's so chubby he looks more like a pudding than a Neville." I thought it was horrific that my grandson would grow up thinking his name was pudding."

Neville wiped his nose. "Why are you telling me this Gran?"

"Hmm?" she said staring at the fireplace, "I never told you much about your parents. I thought perhaps it was time I did"

"You told me they were brave and strong and that Dad was smart and…"

"Yes and they were. I forget that the only versions of your parents you remember are the people in St Mungo's. Neville, your parents were brave and they were strong and Frank, he was my miracle, talented and smart as a whip but they were more than that."

"I know."

"No Neville you do not know. Your mother called you pudding till you were five months old and she bought houseplants and killed them by the dozen. Your Father would walk into doors and furniture and stairs almost constantly he could get so distracted by a complex problem. Your parents were young and terrified just as much as they were talented and brave. Do you believe your parents would say you have no right to feel as you do in this very moment?"

"Mum and Dad they stood up to hours and hours of torture… I… I… nothing that bad happened to me."

"Neville, Frank and Alice Longbottom lost their minds."

"Nothing that bad happened to me," he said again.

"Pain is not willed away by comparison to other people's pain."

"Well it should be," he said shocked by the anger in his voice.

"Then happiness should disappear because someone else has a right to be happier." Augusta Longbottom sighed a flickering of emotions passing over her face. "So this is what you do compare others loss and pain to your own and decide that you have no right to suffer?"

Neville nodded silently.

"There was a time after your parents were lost to us I did much the same thing. Others had lost their children so completely… I remember when Gideon and Fabian Prewett were killed. My son still lived even if you might not call it living. We are more alike than I ever thought possible."

"'Nothing feels real anymore," he confessed.

"And you believe that Miss Lovegood is deserving of help but you are not?"

"Luna was kidnapped and tortured… nothing that bad happened to me."

"There are many ways to torture. It does not always come at the end of a curse. Sometimes it is in watching your children live on even though they were hollowed out of all the things that made them yours and sometimes it comes from months of waiting in terror whilst you try valiantly to protect those around you."

"Nothing that bad…"

"Neville Longbottom," she cut him off sharply, "Your incessant repeating of that phrase does neither of us good."

"Gran," he said breaking open on the words, "Nothing feels real."

"Then we will make it real again. My Grandson is strong and brave and we will make it real again."

_Thank you once again to my lovely reviewers. You really do make it a pleasure to write. You all amaze me with the attention and thought you have put into this story. To the guest who liked my music choices I must say writing lyrics for a Sydney rock band did teach me that bad writing can be made up for with good music so I hope the suggested sound track swept away my more purple prose. In that vein the song for this chapter is Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. _


	47. Every act of cowardice

The next three days were timed out with meals watched as he ate them and the heartbeat of his Gran's hand patting his own. The next three days were conversations he'd rather not have had, thoughts spoken out loud that he'd rather not have said and a slip of paper with names he'd rather not have seen pushed across the table at him. The next three days were spent being told to go back to sleep.

He did not see Luna.

He could not see Luna.

He was beginning to see that he was not good for Luna.

On the second day the slip of paper with the names written in a copperplate hand still sat on the kitchen table. The conversation quickly descended from his defensive shrugs, half-hearted "I know" 's and "I don't know why" 's into a crimson streaked moment when his grandmother forced the paper into his hand and told him in no uncertain terms that he was behaving like a coward. And despite the voice in his head that told him she was absolutely right he scrunched the paper in his fist, throwing it down on the table and stalking out of the room not looking back as he declared, "I'm no' goin' St Mungo's people don' get bet'er there."

On the third day an owl arrived at his windowsill taping persistently when he looked up from the tangle of sheets that were losing the scent of Luna. He stared at the grey owl for a few minutes thinking that it was very easy to let his eyes lose focus and for the owl to become a nonsensical blur, for the tap tap tap to become unimportant like the tick of a clock or echo of his heart beat in the ear he pressed to his pillow.

He opened the window taking the rolled paper from the bird as in hopped into his room looking as nonplussed with Neville as an owl could manage.

_Neville, come to see me. Please. Luna_

Oh how much he wanted to scrunch the little note in his fist and throw it to the ground giving himself over to every act of cowardice he could achieve.

Instead he found the galleon in his top drawer. The coin had left his pocket for the first time three days previously when he had decided that the snotty mess that alternated between angry and numb could no longer lay claim to a position in Dumbledore's Army no matter how many snakes he might have slayed or bridges he'd brought down. The grey owl watched him as he charmed the message.

_This afternoon._

"Get. I got nothing for you," he said to the bird herding it out the window. He tossed the coin back in the drawer not waiting for the heat of a response.

The t-shirt he put on was the t-shirt from the day before. He did not care. He padded barefoot down to the kitchen where he would be expected to eat breakfast and explain his outburst the previous night.

He apparated to the hill beside Luna's turret like home. The sun far was too bright in contrast to three days of isolated dimness. He squinted adjusting to it. He didn't see Ginny until she was almost upon him.

She gave him an almighty shove.

Neville went down. Ginny had surprise and a lower centre of gravity and Neville only a slope and gravel to slide out from beneath him. He landed gracelessly on his arse. Momentarily stunned he could only gape up at the girl with hair flaming in the sunlight above him.

"What in the bloody hell did you do to my friend Neville bloody Longbottom?"

And as he sat in the gravel and grasses his only thought was that he was grateful that Ginny had not pulled her wand on him.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you bloody do," she said kicking him in the shin.

"Ow, for fuck sakes Ginny would you stop!"

"She's not crying or anything, I don't think she ever cries," Ginny continued ignoring him, "But I know she's sad and you haven't been around in days and yesterday she just shows up at the Burrows saying she wanted me to come fishing for plimpies or something and then we get to that damn bridge and she just stops and walks off…"

"Yeah alright I get it," he said hoping to stop her iteration of all the problems he had caused.

"No I don't think you do or you would have been here. Where have you been?" she demanded and Neville took a moment to right himself before she could get another kick in.

"What did she say I did?"

"Nothing. She didn't say you did anything. She didn't tell me why you weren't around. But I'm not an idiot." He was pretty sure he heard her mutter "You're the idiot." under her breath as she turned away from him.

"I'm not discussing this with you. Luna asked me to come, I came," he said flatly ignoring the tone and the insult. Ginny turned again telegraphing her intent before she was able to get her fist up. He grabbed it.

"Ginny!" he warned she was still pushing her weight through the thwarted punch.

"What is going on Neville?" she asked letting her clenched fist fall back to her side. She tilted her face up at him looking more tired than angry, the red rimming of her bright eyes still present. "I tell you I'm worried about Luna and you don't even flinch. What's the hell? This isn't you."

"Oh yeah and who is that exactly?" he asked feeling heavier by the moment. He moved past her trying to make his way down the hill and to Luna. Ginny caught his arm holding him with as much force as she could manage. He tried to shake her off.

"No. You don't just get to walk off," Ginny said a familiar determined look on her face.

"You're the one throwing punches Gin," he replied before he managed to lose her grip.

"Neville? Come off it, where is the real Neville?" she said scrutinising his face. He knew she was seeing the blankness that had greeted him each morning since Luna had left him on his doorstep.

"Again, who's that then?"

"The bloke who worked out how to get us all to behave like a real army when Harry and Ron and Hermione were gone, the Neville who stood up in the middle of class and told the Carrow's where to get off when they were trying to get us to torture first years, you told Voldemort to go fuck himself Neville."

"Yeah?" he felt sick at the thought of all the moments he was supposed to live up to now. "Well we aren't in the middle of a war anymore. Now can I just go and do what I came here to do? I'll stop ruining your afternoon in a minute or two." Ginny visibly flinched at his bluntness.

"Well if that doesn't work how about the kid who befriended the skinny ginger who everyone else ignored 'cause she was just Ron and the twins little sister? You took me to the Yule Ball and apologised every time you stood on my toes and when Luna stopped sleeping you held her all night and told her she was safe. Where the bloody hell is he?"

"Things change. I changed," he shrugged.

"Well I'll be damned if I'm letting this Neville near Luna."

"Why do you think you have a fuckin' vote!" he yelled. He watched numbly as Ginny, fiery Ginny, took a step back from him. He unclenched his fists and took a deep breath, rubbing at his face. "You're right alright. It's my fault Luna's sad and I'm going to put a stop to it."

"A stop? A stop to what? Neville you can't break up with her," Ginny sounded horrified.

"I can if it's the right thing to do."

"How is it the right thing to do?"

"Ginny, I don' wanna discuss this. I'm no good for her. I'm no good for anyone. I shouldn' have… we shouldn' have… she deserves bet'er than this." He gestured at himself before moving further down the hill.

"She wants you."

"Oh yeah which me is tha' then?" he asked not turning back to Ginny who followed him down the hill.

"All of you," she said quietly. Through the anger and the numbness he felt even more of himself break. He slumped back down on the ground. Ginny took a seat beside him and she waited on him like his Gran had done. He tried to bite down on the tears that threatened.

"What is it with you Gryffindor boys thinking dumping us is noble? Don't we get a say?" she sounded wry but Neville thought he heard a little pain behind her words. Neville only shook his head afraid to speak knowing the words would crack in his mouth or be yelled or sound as empty as he felt. She continued in the same joking tone, "Harry said we couldn't be together anymore because someone might try to kill me or something. What's your excuse?" He closed his eyes. "Yeah that's what I thought. Anything less than imminent death I reckon you're gonna have a fight on your hands."

"Ginny. Don't," he managed.

"Did you sleep with her?"

"Wha? I don't see how that's any of your business."

"And there's my answer."

"How would you like it if I asked if you were shagging Harry?"

"But we're not talking about me are we." From the corner of his eye he could see Ginny smirk.

"Merlin, you push me down, you try to hit me and you ask embarrassing questions. I've not been here five minutes. Why are we friends again?"

"I dunno 'cause while I'm doing all that I'm also stopping you breaking up with Luna who you kinda like an awful lot." Beside him she shrugged.

"I haven't seen her in three days. I'm bloody useless. She deserves better," he admitted tiredly.

"Yeah you're right there. Who sleeps with a girl and then disappears for three days?" Ginny let her words sink in before she elbowed him in the ribs. "What are you going to do about it?"

"What am I going to do about what?" he asked.

"Whatever's got you acting like this."

"I get it alright. I've no right…nothing that bad… but I keep… knowing that doesn't make it go away."

"Bloody hell Neville you've got to start finishing your sentences. I'm not Luna I don't just know stuff."

"She doesn't just know stuff. She pays attention to all the things you don't say," he muttered into his hands.

"See the girl's a keeper," Ginny sighed. "What right don't you have?"

"I don't have the right to feel like this." He felt his chest tighten with guilt admitting to Ginny who had lost her brother that he was so consumed.

"Why not? I mean I assume you mean you feel like shit, you kinda look like you feel like shit. Why aren't you allowed to feel like that? I feel pretty shitty myself… every so often I don't and then I feel shitty about not feeling shitty."

"It's not the same. You lost… you lost Fred."

"Yeah. Yeah we did," Ginny agreed quietly, "but I don't always feel bad about not having Fred here… sometimes I feel bad because I thought Harry was dead and we were all going to die. Sometimes I feel bad because I didn't want to die and I was so scared. Sometimes I feel bad because Mum is annoying me and then I remember that I could have lost Mum too. Sometimes it's the memories of the Carrows or the all the dead bodies. But then I talk about it with Mum or Dad or Harry or even Ron… I dunno…" she trailed off picking at the grass seeds on her jeans.

"Luna's only just getting better… she doesn't need me… I'll only make things worse."

"Luna's getting better because of you Neville. I don't know if she would have told any of the rest of us what was going on."

"Gran wants me to talk to someone at St Mungo's like Luna does."

"Sounds like good idea to me."

"I hate St Mungo's," he said firmly.

"'Cause of the smell?" She smiled at him.

"Yeah the smell," he said but the humour fell flat.

"Shouldn't you try everything before you go and break Luna's heart?" Ginny asked, "If she'll forgive you." Neville groaned softly at her side.

"Come on, let's try to be brave this time instead of noble," she said finally giving him one more shove for good measure.

_My thanks again to everyone who read this. My reviewers have been the best. The music for this chapter is "You as you were" by Shearwater. A couple more exams to go and I can maybe get back to writing more regularly and finish this story off. I'll be sad to let Neville and Luna go but there will always be canon to help me through. _


	48. Your anger so unspoken

Luna was on her door step watching as ants crawled across her bare feet. Ginny tugged him towards the grey stone. She appeared to think letting go of his t-shirt would end with Neville running for the hills. Neville wouldn't run for the hills. That had been decided when he'd agreed to come back to this place. But he did not know what to say to Luna and he did not know what she would say. Ginny was right in one respect all the not knowing did make him _want_ to run.

Luna looked up at them dreamily, "Hello Ginny, hello Neville."

"Hey Luna, look who I found," Ginny said with a little too much energy for it to sound anything but false.

"I don't think you found Neville as much as you waited for him to arrive and then pushed him over." Even soaked to the skin in his own misery Neville was glad to see Ginny blush.

"Yeah, well, he deserved a good shove," Ginny muttered and kicked at the dirt surrounding the dirigible plum. His skin prickled with discomfort and he had yet to look Luna in the eyes but watching Ginny caught out in childlike embarrassment he felt suddenly very aware of how young they all really were.

"Oh. Well if he deserved it," Luna said and Neville's gaze flickered up in surprise. She was watching him, he had no doubt that she'd been watching him the entire time and Ginny had been right she did look sad but worse she looked resigned and he knew that he had done that to her. Without meaning to he had made it seem that he was punishing her for bringing up all the ways he was not coping. Luna would never have done such a thing.

"You want to come for a walk?" he asked softly surprised that for the first time in days he didn't sound angry or cold.

She stared at him a fraction longer than he thought he could bear before saying, "Alright Neville." He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Is Ginny coming too?" she asked.

"No," he and Ginny said in unison. Luna only raised her eyebrows higher.

"I've gotta get back to the Burrow's," said Ginny casting him a look of silent reproach.

"We can walk that way," Luna said pleasantly and Neville wished again that he had the ability to read all the things she seemed to see so easily in his face.

"Luna," Ginny said abruptly, full of the quiet conviction that had so coloured his last year at Hogwarts, "go with Neville. You don't need me around to do that."

Neville watched the blonde witch turn her face to Ginny, her hair falling to separate him from her expression before she turned back to him.

"Where are we going Neville?" she asked. He knew he'd forever wonder what Ginny had seen in Luna's face in that moment. He'd wonder if she knew if he was forgiven or doomed. It was all so monstrously unknowable and he wished he could run.

"Um, maybe, I dunno," he was keeping his eyes away from hers, feeling the weight of uncertainty return him to the awkward boy he'd been, "down to the bridge. You know if you want?"

"Alright Neville." She stood smoothing her smock down over her legs. Ginny only shrugged as if to say he was on his own before throwing her arms around Luna's neck and murmuring something into her long hair.

He turned away looking towards the dip in the landscape where the familiar bridge was hidden from view. "Neville," he heard her say behind him, "I'm ready to go now."

Ginny was gone, he wasn't sure when she had left. He must have lost track of time and the noise of the redhead as he stared off into the distance. "Luna," he breathed out as she came closer, "I'm… I'm sorry."

Luna walked on past him his words seeming to have little impact. "Are you?" she asked as he quickened his pace trying to catch up.

"Yeah," he said feeling his own face scrunch in confusion, "Yes, Of course I am."

"That's nice." Luna moved quickly despite her shoeless state across the grass making it seem softer than he knew it to be. She had to be angry but her words come out no less light and airy than any other words she'd ever spoken.

"Luna. Stop."

"I thought we were going for a walk?" She finally stopped short of the bridge and turned towards him. Her cheeks were coloured and her silver eyes a little brighter and he thought for a moment that it was only due to the exercise.

"You're angry. I get that. I screwed everything up. I haven't got an excuse," he said his shoulders hunching as he tried to find any reasonable way to explain the last three days, the last three weeks, the last three months. "I am sorry" he began again and when he looked up he knew it wasn't enough. "Real sorry. I don't think I could be any sorrier."

"Because Ginny told you to be sorry," she said with surprising firmness and he didn't think it would be possible for Luna to be more still, she was never still, always swaying and dancing to her impossible music. Anger made her still, he realised with a start.

"What? No. I mean, she told me off, yeah, but… Luna I haven't been anything but sorry for days," he found himself begging. "Sorry for myself and sorry that I dragged you into it."

"You believe I am a person who gets dragged into things?"

"Uh. No?" he said helplessly, "I mean, Luna please, you are just getting… things are getting better for you. I'll only make them worse. I just know I will."

"What do you plan to do about that?" She looked down then tangling her hair between her fingers.

"I don't know. I don't know. I don't KNOW," he yelled, plans, he hated plans and he hated that he was expected to have them, commit to them, and finish them. He'd had a plan; he was going to tell Luna he couldn't do this anymore. He was going to tell her how he was bad for her and then he was going to leave and never come back. Then there was Ginny with her infinite possibilities and courage to follow the most dangerous of them and her challenge to do just that. And then there was Luna with her windblown hair and silver eyes and he wanted to escape every empty feeling he had in them.

"I knew I shouldn' have tried this," he shook as he spoke, trembling that started in his hands but grew and grew shaking his knees and his arms, until it was only the tension in his shoulders keeping him upright. "Everyone expects plans and answers and I don' know."

"Is that why you didn't come to see me?"

"I couldn' Luna. I just couldn'," he took a step towards her and then quickly a step back. "You said you wouldn' be my escape and it took a while for that to sink in but I go' it. You deserve better than this."

"Yes. I do," her little voice came in quick reply. He felt ashamed that that took him by surprise as if he'd thought Luna who had the strength of person to withstand years of being called Looney, who'd followed five Gryffindors into a half arsed rescue attempt and who'd kept everything he'd ever loved about her alive, alone and in the dark for months, as if that girl would meekly accept his fumbled attempts at loving her, as if that girl would resign herself to him leaving her without explanation or reason.

"Yeah," he said hoarsely. He swallowed. He'd meant to do this and now that he had it felt like the worst thing he had ever done. "I'm sorry. I'll leave." He closed his eyes worried that he would cry before he left her.

"Don't leave," she said and she was closer than she had been. "Do better."

_Song for this chapter is 'Special ones' by George. _

_The subtext, of course, is I am really sorry for taking so long to continue this story. There are reasons but none of them should be important to you. Thank you for still reading. _


	49. Some had scars and some had scratches

The chairs must have been designed to stop people malingering. The only possible reason you would sit in them is because you had no choice. He'd hated these chairs with their squeaky plasticness since he was old enough to truly hate anything, which is quite a bit younger than when you realise that you aren't meant to talk about hating things in polite company or in hospital waiting rooms. The squeakiness was even more noticeable with the way his left leg jiggled erratically to a beat of 'dobetterdobetterdobetterdobetter'.

It was now seven minutes past his appointment time and he'd arrived fifteen minutes early meaning that he was now paranoidily certain that they had been watching him jiggle and twitch the entire time making indecipherable notes and deciding it was about time Neville Longbottom joined Frank and Alice in the Janus Thickey Ward. He could see it now, being dragged through the halls and up to level four whimpering, "I swear it's those seats. I just hate those seats."

He should have brought a book but he'd been worried that the book might reveal something disturbed about his psyche like his only friends were plants or that he was unnaturally obsessed with venomous tentaculars. He might have over thought it, he admitted to himself silently, but honestly what else was he supposed to do all night with the not sleeping.

"Neville? Neville Longbottom? Hallo, I'm Chris? Sorry to have kept you waiting." Neville looked up at a young man in muggle clothing holding a cardboard cup with the tea bag still hanging over its edge. This wasn't right. Christopher Fenwick was supposed to be as old as his gran with a beard as long as Dumbledore's had been and healers robes that smelt of wormwood. He was most definitely not supposed to be some trouser, lime green shirt wearing, tea drinking, twelve year old. Well, the tea drinking could stay but everything else was completely wrong.

"Uh, Christopher Fenwick?" Neville repeated.

"Yeah that's me? Oh sorry, yes right Healer Fenwick? You can call me Chris," the apparent healer continued, shifting his tea into his left hand and offering his right to shake.

"Neville, Neville Longbottom. Sorry you already know that," Neville replied taking his hand.

"We're just through here Neville? You don't mind if I call you that? No preferred nickname? My mother's the only one who calls me Christopher?" The young man paused and smiled at Neville patiently; despite his almost Australian habit of raising his intonation at the end of a sentence he seemed genuinely interested in Neville's response.

"Um, No? Neville's fine?" Neville found himself rising at the end of each statement in sympathy.

"Good, good." Christopher Fenwick nodded enthusiastically as he pushed open his door with a hip and held it open pushing his back against it for Neville to pass. "Sorry. Office is a mess. You know how it is? They moved us out after the battle to put in more beds and then moved us back again? Haven't got round to putting everything back? Honestly keep hoping they might realise the basement isn't the best place for our kind of work."

Neville stood in the centre of the room with a nearly empty book case behind him. Other than two battered looking leather armchairs and a desk the room only featured several boxes of assorted parchments and books. There was a surprising absence of paintings in this room. Every other hallway and ward of St. Mungo's seemed littered with portraits of Healers, Potion Masters and herbalists.

"Should I sit?" Neville asked quietly.

"Please do," he answered gesturing to the leather armchairs, shifting a box off his desk and setting a quill to paper. "So I use a quick quill to take notes? Like all items on the ward they can't be taken off the ward. Basically, my notes are for me and for you. You alright with that?"

"Yeah?"

"Good, good. Alright." The healer seated himself opposite pulling an ankle up to his knee. "How are you Neville?"

"Fine, thank you," Neville found himself replying before blanching.

"Don't worry about it everyone does that at first," Chris smiled waving Neville's anxiety away with a flick of his hand. "It's habit. Wizards particularly. We don't talk about this." He shrugged. "How about we try this? What brings you here today Neville?"

"My Gran and uh my friends, they thought it would be a good idea."

"Did they say why?"

"I… I haven't been acting like… they don't think I'm dealing with… things."

"And do you think that's true?" the healer asked as if he was merely asking if Neville thought the Giant Squid preferred pink or blue.

"I've done the best I could."

"I don't doubt it," the young man took a sip from his tea, "Do you think they are right to be concerned?"

"I don't know what to feel right now?"

"We hear a lot of that," he smiled comfortingly, "But I didn't ask what you feel, I asked what you think."

"Oh, right. Oh I guess…" despite the youth and friendliness of the man opposite Neville suddenly felt as if he'd failed an exam and bit down on the rising embarrassment, " I think I came because they're worried. But," he hurried to add, "there are plenty of people who have it worse than me."

"Hmm? So what would qualify you for this kind of help?"

"Sorry?" Neville felt lost.

"There would be a cut off right?"

"A cut off?"

"For who need help and who wasn't bad enough? I'm interested in where you think that cut off lies." The healer stretched behind himself to place his tea on the desk.

"No, I mean, I don't know," Neville answered stunned.

"We can work it out. Tell me about these people who have it worse than you? Your friends perhaps? Family?"

"You don't want to talk about me?"

"I'd rather talk about what you think."

"Oh," Neville said feeling more out of his depth with each answer. He felt his eyebrows bunch and turned his hands over in his lap seeing the yellowing of callouses he'd got trying to work the emptiness out of his body.

"Neville," the healer said again, "You are a bright young man." Neville felt the immediate physical reaction to such a statement and almost responded 'you've never spoken to my professors then' but the young healer continued on in the face of Neville's incredulousness. "You survived the Battle of Hogwarts and you don't know what to feel. I think it's safe to say you've been doing nothing but trying to figure a way out of this all on your own. So let's talk about the things you haven't been sat up at night going over."

"I tend to go over that stuff too," Neville replied hearing the wry response come out flat.

"Ha! Brilliant!" Christopher Fenwick, Healer, cried out before shrugging, "Indulge me."

"Harry died," Neville offered up feeling ridiculous, of course Harry died; the whole wizarding world knew that. It wasn't even the worst thought that plagued him and yet it was the first thing to fall from his mouth.

"This would be Harry Potter?"

"Yeah. He's a friend," Neville tried to explain; "we slept in the same dormitory. He snores," he added helplessly.

"He didn't stay dead."

"No. He came back."

"But you still worry about him?"

"It can't have been easy," Neville said feeling despite no change in the healer's demeanour that he was being made fun of.

"Who else do you worry about?" Who else? Honestly? Everyone, I worry about everyone because I told them to keep fighting. I worry about everyone.

"Luna," was the next word to leave his mouth.

"Luna?"

"Yeah, she's my… she's a friend."

"Why do you worry about Luna?"

"Because," he answered wanting to leave it at that and knowing he was not allowed to. "Because she doesn't sleep and she's always been so strong and it doesn't help that I know now what happened in that cellar," he shook the thought away, "I worry because she's brilliant and because someone should worry about her." His hands contracted into fists.

"Do you sleep?"

"Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"I wake up a lot," he said forcing his hands to relax.

"What wakes you up?"

"Nightmares," Neville said in a tone he hoped would stop any questions about the contents of his nightmares.

"This happens every night?" The quill behind the healer paused in its scritch scratch across the parchment awaiting Neville's answer. Neville looked past the healer to the softly vibrating purple feather of the quick quill.

"Yeah." The quill moved again.

"More than once a night?"

"Yeah." The quill danced its way to the edge of the parchment.

"And Luna? Does she have nightmares too?"

"No. I mean, I don't know. She just doesn't sleep. She waits and watches for things. I think she's getting better though, I mean she says she's getting better." Having to explain it was making him more aware of how little he really knew. He hadn't thought to ask more than Luna was willing to answer.

"How is she getting better?"

"She… She comes here. She's seeing a healer. I think she mostly talks about Wrackspurts and Nargles though."

"Wrackspurts?" Even the quill stopped at that, hovering as if it was unsure above the parchment.

"Honestly?" he sighed, "If I tried to explain I'd only mess it up."

There was an odd little rhythm to it. Every time Neville felt himself try to pull away and stop the conversation the young healer would ask about Luna, or Harry, or Ginny or Gran and then Neville told him about Seamus and Lavender and the holes in the ground and the way Professor Sprout had looked at him when he'd suggested defensive ground cover and then the time was up. Time was up and the mousey haired healer with the easy smile had not once asked him how he was feeling.

"I'd like to see you again Neville," he said as he held his office door open in much the same way he had an hour earlier with arms full of parchments and books rather than tea.

"Alright," agreed Neville instead of asking how all the talking was supposed to help him do better.

It was strangely exhausting being listened to so thoroughly. It wasn't until he'd returned home to his garden that it occurred to him that no one had tried to stop him from leaving.

_The song for this chapter is 'Mountain Sound' by Of Monsters and Men. Thank you so much to my reviewers and readers. I promise I'll respond to your reviews soon. I am so glad there are still people who want to keep reading this. x_


End file.
